& 




K oV 








W 






° ^ c^ * 













"oV 



sO 




«» • * * * o 








4o 




4?X 



r.%' a 



**. 




4 o 




>i» A v * rCV\ s» A ^V% ^ 




.0' 







<- 






■V 






6*°* 










?>. 












^ ^ ^ 



* Or-. * 0° «* 







*h 







I* 



*p-v ^°<* 










-.0 




9 / 1 












- * *' 



\>""> 
v -$*, 



.V 






\y* A ~b 





















/ 



' 




Ex- Governor Richard B. Hubbard, United States Minister to 
Japan from 1885 to 1890. 



The United States in the Far East; 



OR, 



Modern Japan and the Orient 



BY 

RICHARD B. HUBBARD, 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of ths 

United States to Japan, from 1885 to 1890 ; Governor 

of Texas, from 1876 to 1879, and Temporary 

President of the National Democratic 

Convention at Chicago in 1884. 



RICHMOND, VA.: 

B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO. 

18QQ. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Receive*' 

OCT 17 1903 

Copynghl Entry 

CUSS XXc. No 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1899, by Richard B. Hubbard. 



Imperfect 



JID'03 



■ •••••••« • ••• 



DEDICATORY. 



This volume of "UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST,— OR, 
MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT," is respectfully dedicated 
to my life-long friends : 
THE HONORABLE FREDERICK H. WINSTON, LL. D., 
, of Chicago, 

and to 
THE HONORABLE WILLIAM S. HERNDON, 
Ex-Member of Congress, of Texas. 
This simple tribute is neither formal nor perfunctory, but is 
made from the promptings of an early and constantly Increasing 
friendship, which remains indissoluble in the evening, as it was 
joyous and unselfish in the morning of our lives. 

We, as natives of the same great commonwealth, the " Land 
of Oglethorpe" ; comrades and class-mates in the ancient law 
school consecrated by the learning of Greenleaf and Parker, and 
Parsons and Loring; associated in after times in the political 
counsels of the Republic ; coming together as we then did from 
far distant States, in the after years of our maturer manhood, 
represented our country, respectively, at the Courts of the ancient 
Kingdom of Persia and of the Empire of Japan. These associa- 
tions have bound us together with chords of an unselfish friend- 
ship, which have grown stronger with the flight of years Your 
experience and mine in the far East, in the light of recent memor- 




General Frederick H. Winston, United States Minister and Consul 
General to Persia 1S85-1887, 



UNITED STATES IK THE FAR EAST. 7 

able events of our country's history, will enable you to appreciate 
more intelligently our brief reviews of the distant lands of which 
they treat in this faithful record. 

In this connection, we cannot forego a further public expression 
of a similar friendship for, and grateful acknowledgement of 
many obligations in the past of our private and public life to the 

HONORABLE WILLIAM S. HERNDON, of Texas. 

Largely because of his generous encouragement and intelligent 
assistance and material aid extended to the author, have these 
sketches been prepared for the press, and are now awaiting the 
favorable judgment of his countrymen. If an intelligent and in- 
dulgent public shall become interested and profited, and our love 
of native land be made the brighter by the recitals, then whatever 
of credit may be given to the author must be divided, share and 
share alike, between the two distinguished names— eminent alike 
in the world of statesmanship, law, and finance — to whom I have 
dedicated this book. Their brilliant successes have been reached 
by courage and ability and culture and patriotism, which they 
have made useful to themselves and to their country. 

I have endeavored to paint the present and prospective rela- 
tions of Japan especially, and of China and the Orient generally, 
political and commercial, to our own country without the colors of 
the rose. Anyhow, it is an earnest tribute to that marvelous 
people, as this dedication is a sincere offering to the friends of my 
youth. 




Hon. William S. Herndon, Ex- Member Congress of Texas. 



PREFACE 



Our indulgent countrymen will neither ex- 
pect nor demand any formal prologue on our 
first appearance on the stage of American au- 
thorship. Therefore, without the sound of 
herald we enter upon the self-imposed task of 
sketching modern Japan, "The Land of the 
Morning," as the author saw it during four 
years of official sojourn, while United States 
Minister at the Court and Capital of the Em- 
pire. In approaching this work, we are advised 
of the fact that others have preceded us in this 
field; nor are we forgetful of the menace, 
uttered ages ago, "Oh that mine adversary 
had written a book." Neither of these con- 
siderations shall deter us from offering some 
contributions, hitherto unpublished, and later 
than any of our predecessors have made toward 
a better understanding of this most marvelously 
progressive people of the Orient, and their pres- 
ent and prospective commercial and political re- 
lations to the United States of America. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Dedicatory 5-7 

Preface 9 

List of Illustrations 15-16 

Chapter I. 

Appointment as United States Minister — Receiving 

Instructions at Washington 17 

Chapter II. 

Interview with Ex-President Grant, Relating to 
Japan, nearly a year before the Author's Ap- 
pointment as United States Minister . .... 19 

The Educational and Political Progress of Japan in 
Law, Finance, Legislation, and Toleration of 
all Creeds and Faiths of Religion 31 

Chapter III. 
Japan's Growth as a Naval and Military Power . . 32 

Chapter IV. 
Tribute to the "Blue" and the " Gray" 39 

Chapter V. 

Across the Pacific to Japan — " Bon Voyage," and 

Its Incidents 44 

Chapter VI. 
Approaching Japan 54 

Chapter VII. 

Arrival in Yokohama; and Tokio, the Capital of 

Japan 61 

11 



12 CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Chapter VIII. 
At the United States Legation 67 

Chapter IX. 
America's Day at Court 74 

Chapter X. 

Physical Features, and Productions, and Material 

Wealth, and Resources of Japan 82 

Chapter XL 
Earthquakes 104 

Chapter XII. 

Political and Educational Evolutions of Japan . . . 118 

Chapter XIII. 

Japan Awakes from the Sleep of Ages; Enters the 

Race for Higher Civilization 132 

Chapter XIV. 
Free Public Schools and Universities of Japan . . 136 

Chapter XV. 

The Womanhood of Japan 144 

Political Advancement 152 

Imperial Decree 154 

Chapter XVI. 

The Revision of the Treaties — Part of Heretofore 

Unpublished History 155 

Chapter XVII. 

The United States and Japan Independently of the 
Treaty Powers enter into a Separate Treaty, 
Recognizing the Early and Complete Autonomy 
of the Empire 201 



CONTENTS. 13 

Page. 

Chapter XVIII. 

The Religions of Japan and Progress of the Chris- 
tian Church 211 

Part Borne by Christian Missionaries 222 

Chapter XIX. 

Toleration to the Christian Church 228 

Chapter XX. 
Separation of Church and State 231 

Chapter XXI. 
The Population, Area, and Industries of Japan . . 243 

Chapter XXII. 
Future Commercial Relations — Nicaraugua Canal . 246 1^ 

Chapter XXIII. 

The Ship Transit in Its Relations to South America 

as well as Japanese Trade 263 

Chapter XXIV. 

The Chinese War 266 

Chapter XXV. 
Japan Wages a Humane War 273 v 

Chapter XXVI. 
Intervention 276 

Chapter XXVII. 
The United States in the Far East 282 

Chapter XXVIII. 

Japan's Military and Naval Establishments in the 

Chinese War 293 



14 CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Chapter XXIX. 
The Home Life of Japan — The Married Rela- 
tions — Doom of Polygamy 301 

Chapter XXX. 

Japan, and Colonization by the United States in the 

East 307 

Chapter XXXI. 

The Relation of the United States and Japan to the 
Proposed " Peace Congress of the World," 
Called to Assemble at St. Petersburg in 1899 . . 320 

Chapter XXXII. 

Last Days in Japan — Homeward Bound 337 

Present Treaty of Commerce and Navigation Be- 
tween Japan and the United States of America, 345 
Amendment to the Foregoing Treaty, Proposed by 

the Government of the United States of America, 260 

Japan's Forward Step 361 

Protocol 364 

Speech of the United States Minister on the Use of 
the English Language in Japan, in the Confer- 
ence of all Nations 366 

Speech of the United States Minister on the Au- 
tonomy of Japan, in the International Confer- 
ence 370 

Speech of the United States Minister on Japanese 
Jurisdiction 379 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Pagb 

Ex-Governor Richard B. Hubbard Frontispiece 

General Frederick H.Winston 6 

Hon. William S. Herndon 8 

Ex- President U. S. Grant (Opp.) 20 

Transplanting Rice " 22 

A Rice Mill " 26 

Japanese Hotel of First-Class ' * 28 

Marquis Ito, Premier of Japan " 34 

Pilgrims to Fuji " 46 

Sacred Mountain in the Distance — "Fuji," " 54 

A Scene in Yeddo Bay " 62 

Pontoon and Jinrikishas " 64 

Frederick S. Mansfield " 68 

The Emperor of Japan " 74 

The Empress of Japan " 80 

Coolies Carrying Children " 84 

Familiar Scenes — Shopping in Country Vil- 
lage " 88 

Dinner " 92 

Blood Cascade " 96 

High Priest of Shintoism ' ' 98 

Jinrikisha " 102 

15 



16 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Sengakuji (Opp 

Samurai 

Sleeping 

A Famous " Belle" of Japan 

Japanese Lady Playing the M Koto". . . . 
Typical Japanese Beauty of the Higher 

Classes 

Count Inouye, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

Ex-President Grover Cleveland 

Hon. James G. Blaine . 

Hon. Thomas F. Bayard 

Buddhist Priests 

Famous Buddhist Temple 

"Shinto" — Temple Gates 

Aged "Dimaio" and Wife, of Feudal Times, 
Approach to the Famous Shrines of the 

Buddhists 

His Excellency Li Hung Tsee 

Pagoda — Tennonji — Osaka 

Winter Scene 

Wrestlers 

"Ahrnohs" (or Nurses) Carrying Children, 
Sisters , 



Page. 

114 
120 
130 
144 

148 

152 
158 
174 
202 
208 
212 
216 
218 
222 

236 
248 
254 
280 
292 
302 
308 



CHAPTER I. 



APPOINTMENT AS UNITED STATES MINISTER RE- 
CEIVING INSTRUCTIONS AT WASHINGTON IN- 
TERVIEW WITH EX-PRESIDENT GRANT. 




T was in the good year of Our 
Lord, 1885, tnat tne author was 
?UJs£?S tendered the appointment by the 
President of the United States and ratified by 
the Senate, as Representative or, in diplomatic 
parlance, " Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary," to the Empire of Japan. 
Early in the month of May of that year, we 
reported to the President and Department of 
State for " Instructions," which are always 
given to the Republic's Ministers or Ambas- 
sadors before entering upon their accredited 
missions in foreign lands. Of the special or 

2 [17] 



18 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

general character of these instructions it is 
necessary now to say only, that their full 
meaning and general scope was, of course, to 
uphold the honor and interests of our country ; 
and especially, as relating to Japan, to watch 
and study with earnest vigilance and care her 
history and progress on the lines of the higher 
civilization, and her approaches toward the 
attainment of the capacity to exercise an inde- 
pendent self-government among the nations. 
Later on, in these sketches, the special appli- 
cations of these "Instructions" from our gov- 
ernment will be noted, when invoked, as they 
will be, by memorable events in the political 
evolution and life of Japan, which occurred 
during our mission from 1885 to 1890, and ex- 
tending and widening thereafter through the 
war with China to its triumphant close. 



CHAPTER II. 



INTERVIEW WITH EX-PRESIDENT GRANT, RELATING 
TO JAPAN NEARLY A YEAR BEFORE THE AUTHOR'S 
APPOINTMENT AS UNITED STATES MINISTER. 




S$T was while at the capitol at 
Washington, more than a year 
&&<$ preceding the foregoing date, 
that the unpartizan suggestion was kindly made 
to the author, by a few of General Grant's 
life-long friends, to visit the Ex-President, 
then, in 1884, residing in the city of New York. 
The generous motive given for this kind sug- 
gestion was that this great American had, 
some years before that date, made his famous 
voyage around the world so graphically 
sketched by John Russell Young, distinguished 
as an editor and diplomat, and the chosen com- 

[19] 



20 THE UNITED STATES IK THE FAB EAST. 

pagnon de voyage of the illustrious soldier. We 
were told by these friends that he tarried longer 
in Japan, the guest of the Empire than in any 
other land around the globe. These gentle- 
men added, what they had heard from his own 
lips, that his observations and opinions of this 
people would be of especial interest to any one 
of his countrymen who might visit those distant 
shores, whether on pleasure, or on public or 
private account. 

We went from the capital to the American 
metropolis to meet the Ex-President for the 
first and what proved to be the last time. It 
was an unheralded meeting. We were received 
as in "ye olden time," with that genial and 
undemonstrative hospitality characteristic of 
that "silent man of destiny." 

Our brief interview related largely to Japan 
and the Orient, and we became an earnest lis- 
tener to his unpretending but deeply absorbing 




Ex-President XT. 8, Grant of the United States of America. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 21 

recital and outline of his opinions of the pres- 
ent and future of that Island Empire and the 
Orient, and especially its probable political re- 
lations to the United States of America. The 
substance of that interview, brief as it was, we 
shall repeat, relating to what General Grant 
saw and thought of Japan while in the far East. 
Passing by the genial and informal greeting of 
that hour, General Grant, who, when interested 
himself in the subjects of his discourse, was 
always entertaining, after modestly giving a 
brief resume of his voyage across the Pacific, 
said his visit to Japan produced the conviction, 
never changed since, that if he had ever cher- 
ished ambition for diplomatic life, he had rather 
have represented his country in Japan than at 
the Courts of even England, Germany, or 
France. Not that it was of the same diplo- 
matic class or of same commercial importance ; 
but because there was attached to this marve- 



22 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

lous country, which impressed him deeply, the 
added attractions of a rapid yet steady growth ; 
a striding toward the better and higher civiliza- 
tion in all the elements that constitute the mate- 
rial as well as the enlightened political and moral 
power of a State. He saw in his study of their 
educational, political and judicial institutions, 
and their absolute toleration of all religious 
faiths, the promise, though far in the Pagan 
Hast, of a people soon to take their co-equal 
and independent place in the family of nations. 
On his first arrival in Japan what struck 
General Grant most forcibly, was the physical 
characteristics of the country. Its soil, even 
on the mountains and especially in the valleys 
and by the sea- side, was of wonderful fertility 
and cultivated with all the care and skill of pro- 
fessional gardeners in Europe or America. 
For thousands of years these lands have been 
enriched by fertilizers and composts. From 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 23 

their tender nursing of flowers, of which they 
are passionately fond, and the culture of shrubs 
and trees and vines, a stranger of the Occident 
feels that he has entered a very fairy-land. 
This native and cultivated love for the beauti- 
ful of forest and field and garden manifests 
itself in their unequalled artificial landscape 
gardening which everywhere, from the sea to 
the mountain, attracts the eye of the most 
aesthetic traveler from western lands. Poor 
John Keats, who died in the morning of a great 
career, sang long ago, "A thing of beauty is a 
joy forever." The song would have found a 
realization in Japan. Not alone in the flower- 
gardens, but as well in the arrangement of their 
rice fields, furnishing the bread of an empire, 
and their cultivation of tea and silk — in fact of 
everything that grows from the earth or buds 
and blossoms under the sun, this universal 
national love of the beautiful is observed. In 



24 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

approaching their "farms," as we call them in 
the West, one sees at a glance that the land- 
scape arrangement always relieves the drudgery 
of the laborer. The monotony is broken here 
and there by mots of live oak and evergreen 
and venerable trees and clinging vines planted 
by their own hands, and amid it all living waters 
are flowing in Hogarth's curving lines of beauty, 
or falling murmuringly over artificial beds of 
granite, or mimic cascades and waterfalls. 
"This," said General Grant, "was to me, as it 
will be to you, a veritable and beautiful reve- 
lation of physical Japan." The author in the 
after years of his residence in Japan, in his 
study of the traditions and customs of this 
people, was assured by them of the fact that 
for many centuries, even antedating the Chris- 
tian era, their native and cultivated love for 
flowers and forests and the beautiful in na- 
ture had literally resulted in transforming these 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 25 

islands into landscape gardens of rare flowers 
and orchids where in the long ago nothing but 
rugged granite and mountain sides or barren 
plains offended the eye. And so it is, to this 
day, the love of the Japanese for the tree and 
flower and the vine has covered the whole land 
by the willing labor of his hands, with carpets 
of beauty, hiding from the traveler the bleak- 
ness of the mountains, on which, in ages past, 
they had planted the cedar and Eucalyptus and 
fadeless evergreens, extending to the table- 
lands and lowlands by the sea. And another 
remarkable, and for that latitude of thirty-three 
degrees, exceptional fact which he observed 
and learned, as did the author in after years, 
from the highest sources, was, that the frost even 
when black and poisonous, seldom ever nipped 
to death the tenderest fruits or plants, save 
now and then when the winds freighted with 
volcanic-vapors from the seas, as they generally 



26 THE VNITEB STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

are, fail to blow to the landward, and then "un- 
timely frosts " there, as here, would wither and 
kill. So that in the winters, which are ever mild, 
the fruits and flowers in the more southern por- 
tions of these islands are always budding and 
blossoming and fruiting. And while in color 
and tint from the native and gorgeous chrysan- 
themum to the blushing rose and sensitive 
plant, the flora of no portion of the earth is 
their equal, yet, strange and unique as it may 
appear, there is not a shrub or flower in all Japan 
that has even a suggestion of fragrance. The 
Savants attribute this misfortune to the influ- 
ence of the sulphurous volcanic vapors that en- 
velop them — coming from the ocean, borne on 
the nieht winds. 

But leaving its physical character, General 
Grant told the author in that unassuming man- 
ner which marked his career through life, "that 
the most gratifying incident of his visit to Japan 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 27 

was the earnest welcome which he received, as 
all Americans do receive it, at the hands alike 
of prince and subject, from the moment the good 
ship reaches its shores until, homeward bound, 
the returning voyage is made to native land." 
General Grant with his sensitive modesty, 
which never obtruded his own personality to the 
front, did not acquaint the writer with any of 
the special evidences of this historic welcome 
to himself but spoke only of the genial char- 
acter of that greeting, and attributed it all to 
the affection which Japan felt for our country 
rather than for himself- — a country which they 
always denominated "The Great Republic of 
the West." He seemed to think that his mag- 
nificent welcome was simply because he was a 
citizen of that Republic, who, though no longer 
in official station, had been loyal to the Union, 
upholding its flag in the perilous days of the civil 
war, and who had last, though not least, cap- 



28 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

tured the heart of Japan by his outspoken 
foreign policy when President, advocating the 
revision of the treaties with Japan, the early ab- 
olition of ex-territoriality, and recognizing her 
acquired capacity for self-government, because 
of her marvelous advances in civilization, in 
statesmanship, and toleration in church and 
State. For over forty years under the exac- 
tions of the Treaty Powers, including our 
own country, Japan, China, Asiatic Turkey, 
in fact all Asia and Africa were subjected by 
forced-treaty stipulations to submit to the dic- 
tations of the Treaty Powers in all matters 
relating to tariffs and duties on imports. 
And no subject or citizen of any Christian na- 
tion, whatever his offense, could be tried in the 
courts of these so-called " Heathen Lands." 
It is so to this hour. The United States was 
the first nation to advocate the abolition of this 
unjust discrimination against Japan. These 
were some of the special causes which, doubt- 



3 




MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 29 

less, made the welcome of the great American 
ex-President surpass, in magnificence and ori- 
ental splendor, any reception ever before ex- 
tended within the memory of man to princes 
or to crowned heads or to the great field- 
marshals of war from imperial Europe or the 
Orient. Her army and navy were placed at 
his service that he might study their evolutions 
on shore and sea. He was the guest of the 
Emperor in an ancient palace surrounded by 
gardens and landscapes and with views of the 
sea with which, in beauty and romantic environ- 
ments, the palace-gardens of St. Cloud and St. 
James were hardly to be compared, as the 
author long afterwards verified from personal 
observation. Hundreds of trained servants 
and attendants of the descendants of the old 
"Samrai" and princess of the blood were in 
waiting. Not obtrusive, but always present 
and anticipating every want, from the service 



30 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

of the national beverage to the chivalrous 
courtesies of the court. The writer himself 
became familiar with all these things during 
the subsequent years of his mission. Long 
after General Grant had passed " across the 
river," like a knight of old, the writer saw 
them as they had been recited by the hero a 
year before his mission began. We shall have 
occasion later on in these recitals to verify the 
prediction of General Grant, that the welcome 
of all Americans to this Empire would be like 
his own, in spirit though not in degree, earnest 
and honest, because they represented a country 
for which Japan cherished a sentiment of love, 
rather than the traditional cold and formal 
entente cordiale of diplomatic protocols and 
treaties. 

We listened with respectful attention to what 
General Grant further on related of his impres- 
sions of 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 31 

The Educational and Political Progress of 
Japan in Law, Finance, Legislation, and 
Toleration of all Creeds and Faiths of Re- 
ligion. 

As to this interview, hasty and unheralded as 
it was, we can make only brief record of his 
general conclusions as to the future of Japan 
and the rest of the Orient, based upon its pro- 
gress as he had seen it. That judgment, calmly 
formed and expressed, modestly but with earnest 
conviction, was, that this " gem of the Orient" 
was to become in some future day a great power 
in the far East and command the respect of all 
western nations. Leaving the discussion of 
the educational advances and the political 
and progressive statesmanship of the Empire, 
he said, in substance, that what impressed him 
more than anything else he saw or heard was 
the progress of Japan in the "arts of war." 



CHAPTER III. 



JAPAN S GROWTH AS A NAVAL AND MILITARY 
POWER. 




F my opinions are worth anything," 
he said, "they are founded upon 
&£&$. my experience and life as a sol- 
dier. Serving as cadet at West Point in my early 
manhood, and thereafter in the regular army 
and in the war with Mexico, and, after an inter- 
val of years in private life, serving again in the 
armies of the Union, in the civil conflict, it was 
my business and my duty as well to study in 
the field as elsewhere, the ' arts of war.' ' 
While in Japan the general had the opportunity 
of becoming familiar, as he did, with the military 
and naval establishments of the country. Of 
course he did not go into details, but he did 

[32] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 33 

say to the author that, from the standpoint of a 
soldier, this people had accomplished more in 
the last one-third of a century in establishing 
an army and navy, justly commanding the 
respect of the world, than any other of the 
Powers of the earth had accomplished, in the 
same number of years, before that time. He 
saw their drills and their movements by sea 
and land, their life and discipline in camp and 
field, and their instructions in the imperial mili- 
tary and naval colleges, similar to our own at 
Annapolis and West Point. From these oppor- 
tunities and observations, he arrived at the 
conclusion that the time would come, before a 
decade has passed away, when all the great 
Powers would see the verification of his opinion 
of Japan's martial prowess ! " I think," he 
continued, "that the test will be made in a 
coming war between China and Japan ! I shall 
probably not live to see that conflict, but it is 



34 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

coming ! While a visitor to both of those old 
nations, there were ' strained relations ' between 
them, even then foreboding war." 

[It is now well known to our government as 
well as to all the Treaty Powers that a war was 
prevented at that time only by the fact that 
China and Japan submitted their old disputes, 
involving Formosa and the Loo Choo islands, to 
General Grant, as umpire, with plenary powers 
to settle the entire matter.] 

Though then only a private citizen of America, 
General Grant acted as that umpire, and on his 
decision these ancient dynasties shook hands 
and " smoked the pipe of peace," Count Ito for 
Japan and Prince Li Hung Chang for China, 
accepting the decision of the American referee. 
This is now of record in the archives of both 
China and Japan ; yet General Grant observed, 
even while, for the time, peace was assured, that 
the old wounds were only healed on the surface, 




Marquis Ito, Premier of Japan's Cabinet. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT 35 

while " bad blood " still rankled in the hearts of 
the seemingly reconciled nations, and was con- 
cealed only by artful diplomacy. "War may 
not come," he said, "but if it shall come, my 
own prediction and belief as a soldier is that 
Japan, with less than forty millions of people, 
will cross the sea by way of Corea with her 
well-equipped and disciplined army while her 
war ships attack the forts of Port Arthur and 
Yaloo on the sea, and in less than twelve 
months, China, with her five hundred millions 
of people, will be a conquered power and a 
suppliant at the feet of Japan suing for peace." 
He spoke this, he said, with all deference, but 
earnestly. Those were in substance the memo- 
rable words of General Grant, which, as all the 
world now knows, proved to be prophetic in 
less than a decade from the hour of our meet- 
ing in 1884, m the almost literal fulfillment 
of the prediction of the great soldier. That 



36 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

mightiest nation of Asia was crushed by this 
"Lochinvar" out of the East, in less than a 
year of war ! General Grant passed through 
"the valley and the shadow of death," fearless 
and full of Christian hope, within a year after 
the date of our meeting, and long before his 
prophecy became verified. The ex-President 
confessed that these opinions of the land of 
which he had been a loved and honored guest 
were somewhat influenced by the boundless 
hospitality shown to the United States in the 
person of himself. This hospitality was shown 
largely because he was an American citizen, 
and because the occasion furnished to Japan 
the opportunity to manifest her respect and 
her love for our country. From Li Hung 
Chang to the Chinese Empress Dowager and 
the coolie — from Pekin to Shanghai in the Mid- 
dle Kingdom — they showered upon him like- 
wise a most gracious hospitality. His opinions 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 37 

were founded on the evidence he everywhere 
saw of Japan's wonderful advance in civilization 
and in all the qualities which constitute the true 
power of a State. He would have us under- 
stand that he avoided trenching upon the 
peaceful and tolerant conflict in those far east- 
ern lands, between Paganism and the Christian 
religion. But believing, as he did, in the God 
of the old Bible and in the Christ of the New 
Testament, in the Crucifixion and the Resur- 
rection, nevertheless, he said that the only 
Paganism he heard of in Japan was confined to 
the temples and not exhibited by the State, and 
seemed to rest lightly on the people, from the 
prince to the peasant. In a word, we were 
assured that almost complete toleration in mat- 
ters of church existed there. The denial by the 
Buddhist church of the divinity of Christ Jesus 
and its denial of eternal punishment after death 
did not seem to produce fanaticism in the gov- 



38 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

ernment, or lessen their love for our country, 
or teach intolerance of the Christian mission- 
aries, or hinder their progress in any way toward 
the higher hopes and civilization of the West. 
When he returned from his long voyage around 
the world, and said to his countrymen in part 
what he said to us, many of his sincerest friends 
thought that he was painting Japan in the colors 
of the rose, and that his honest opinions thus 
and then expressed, smacked of Munchausen. 
We here close the brief recital of the substance 
of this the first and last interview on Japan 
which the writer ever had with the famous sol- 
deir and ex-President of the great Republic. 



CHAPTER IV. 




TRIBUTE TO THE " BLUE AND THE "GRAY. 

m ^ " 

HOUGH it does not by any means 

relate to Japan, yet the author 
feels that it is just to the mem- 
ory of a great and typical American now gone 
to his reward, that he should give a faithful and 
brief recital of Grant's parting words. He ex- 
pressed the sincere hope that our people would 
soon forgive and forget the bitter memories 
and bad blood of that fratricidal conflict be- 
tween the States. "I rejoice in the prospect/' 
he continued, " of the early return of the old 
time spirit of union and fraternity between the 
North and the South. The very fact that, from 
the peaceful civic revolutions and changes in 

our political home government, many of the 
4 I39J 



40 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Southland who fought against the Union, will 
ere long bear the National flag to foreign lands 
as representatives of the restored Union will 
show that however we may have differed in 
political faiths, yet, at last, the old love for our 
native land comes back to us and asserts its 
supremacy as in the days of our fathers." He 
hailed these signs as the harbingers of a glorious 
day now dawning on the country. He was for 
the Union, of "course, with all his soul, but he 
earnestly said to us that our people, North and 
South, must forgive and forget. They could 
afford in honor to do both. As foemen they 
were worthy of each other's steel, on every 
field of battle where the Blue and the Gray 
fought and fell together. "We believed," he 
continued, " that the South was wholly wrong 
in her appeal to arms, but her soldiers put all 
controversy to the end of time at rest as to 
their absolute honesty and belief in the justness 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. . 41 
) 
of their side of that struggle; at any rate, like 

the Union soldiers they sealed their convictions 

with their blood, and from that last judgment 

there can be no appeal." * * * From 

that good hour, if never before, General Grant 

in our heart and head — unquestioned it shall 

be for all time — took his place by the side of 

the great patriots and field marshals of history, 

who fought for principles and not from passion 

or ambition, and whose lives are crowned with 

blessings and benedictions, in that they could 

both forget and forgive a brave and honest 

adversary who had fallen in defeat. Unlike the 

human vultures of the past who follow and feast 

upon the blood and booty of the wounded and 

the dead, they soar above the clouds of hate, 

as eagles, toward the sun. In the inaugural 

message of President Grant, he closed, as all 

the world knows, that brief historic message 

to his countrymen with the memorable words 



42 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

"Let us have peace!" In the "Personal 
Reminiscences of his Life," written near its 
close to win from hard fate a living for his then 
almost impoverished household, and nearly at 
the conclusion of that autobiography, which every 
American should read, the dying hero repeated 
the same invocation to Almighty God on behalf 
of the restored union of these States. These 
were the hopeful words put on record while 
the golden halo of his setting sun was then 
gathering around his head. They are a legacy 
to his countrymen worthy to be enshrined 
with the " Farewell Address " of Washington. 
" I feel that we are on the 
eve of a new era, when there is to be great 
harmony between the Federals and the Con- 
federates, I cannot stay to be a living wit- 
ness to the correctness of this prophecy, but I 
feel it within me that it is to be so. The un- 
usually kind feeling expressed for me at a time 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 43 

when it was supposed that each day would be 
my last, seemed to me the beginning of the 
answer to, * :i: * ' Let us have peace ! ' * :!: * 
It is a significant and gratifying fact that Con- 
federates should have joined in this spontaneous 
move. I hope the good feeling thus inaugu- 
rated may continue to the end." 

In a far distant land, more than a year after 
this informal interview, the flags of our country 
were flying at half mast from the heights of 
the American Legation and from our war ships 
in port, black crape was draped from every 
American's door in Japan and the Orient, and 
hearts were sad and eyes were moist at the an- 
nouncement by cable under the sea that the 
great soldier and ex-President had yielded, and 
like a hero, to the "Last Enemy." 



CHAPTER V. 



ACROSS THE PACIFIC TO JAPAN " BON VOYAGE," 

AND ITS INCIDENTS. 




E have now crossed the continent 
with our family and staff, and 
have arrived, in the latter part 
of June, 1885, at San Francisco. We do not 
wish to tax the reader with the oft-repeated 
stories of an ocean voyage. However, it must 
be confessed that from Marryatt's ''Tales of 
the Sea" to the apostrophe of Byron in 
a Childe Harold" calling in vain unto the 
storms and fleets which sweep over the seas ; 
from the white sails of commerce entering 
harbors of peace, to the thunder of battle-ships 
in war, there is always and ever will be an 
enchantment of which we never grow weary 

[44] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 45 

from childhood tp old age. Our single design 
now, however, is to describe the good ship of 
the American merchant marine, the "Tokio," 
of the " Pacific Mail," in which we were a 
passenger, and the personnel of its officers and 
men and the good ship's company, embarked in 
the cabin or in the steerage. We shall take our 
readers on board with us, and they shall see as 
we saw, and feel as we felt in the struggles of 
the brave ship against winds and waves for the 
twenty-three days we were passing over that 
lonely sea. The officer in command of the 
"Tokio" was "Commodore" Maury, a retired 
captain of the United States Navy, who was 
styled " Commodore " because of being the 
oldest officer then in the continuous service of 
that great merchant line. He was a gallant 
naval lieutenant in the war with Mexico and 
in the late Civil War. He was a near kinsman 
of the Confederate Commodore, Matthew F. 



46 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

Maury, of Virginia, who was, before the war, 
the head of the National Observatory at Wash- 
ington, and who made the famous charts of 
the winds and the tides — of the dangerous 
currents and reefs of all the seas around the 
globe. Our " Commodore" Maury, of the 
"Tokio," was a typical representative of the 
American sailor. On board, on the passenger 
list, was the American Minister and his family 
and staff. There were consuls and consul- 
generals from our own country as well as from 
some European nations, and a few Japanese 
returning to their native land from our Ameri- 
can schools and universities and military and 
naval institutions. There were also merchants 
in the Oriental tea and silk trade on board, 
bound for nearly all the great ports of the 
Orient. These, with the lady contingent, con- 
stituted the diplomatic and political and mer- 
cantile and military portion of the cabin 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 47 

passage. With them, as fellow-passengers, 
was a number of devoted missionaries and 
their wives and children, mostly from the 
United States, but with some representatives 
from European lands. Many of these godly 
men and devoted women were returning to 
Japan and China and India or other countries 
of the far East from long-deserved vacations, 
or going out for the first time, bearing the ban- 
ner of the Cross, under appointments of the 
Christian-world, of all creeds and denomina- 
tions ; going — 

" From Greenland's icy mountains 
To India's coral strand." 

There were in the steerage more than a 
thousand Chinamen from the Pacific slope, 
returning to the " Celestial Kingdom"; many 
of them bearing, with loving care, the ashes of 
their dead, to find holy sepulchre under the 
shadows of the temples of Buddha — it being an 



48 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

ancient superstition of the Chinese Buddhists 
that the future happiness of their kindred is 
never absolutely assured until their mortal 
remains shall at last repose in their native 
land. The remainder of the ship's company 
were the gallant officers under the " Commo- 
dore," and the " jolly tars " before the mast. 
We are now far in the afternoon of a cloudless 
summer's day in June, and about to sail. The 
last good-byes have been said on shore and 
ship to the loved ones who have followed us 
across the continent. The " signal gun" is 
booming "farewell" to the shore, and the swift 
commands in nautical phrase to make the ship 
ready and clear the decks for the coming battle 
with wind and waves, receive answers, " Aye, 
aye, sirs," from the sailors from the deck to 
the topmost masts. The national ensign is 
now floating above us, and the great ship 
moves steadily from her moorings and anon in 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 49 

mid-stream is passing down to the " Golden 
Gate." We are in the most placid and 
enchanting harbor on the earth, excepting the 
"Bay of Yeddo," to whose peaceful waters 
our good ship is bearing us, six thousand miles 
from our native land. 

We are now out upon the vast Pacific. It 
is a happy law of compensation that enables 
human memories to forget recent sorrows and 
to look into the face of the future with cheerful 
hope. So it was with that good ship's com- 
pany. The sadness of leaving our common 
country and the kindred and friends we loved, 
is succeeded by the mutual congratulations 
alike of strangers and friends on the upper 
decks. The author had never crossed any 
great sea before, and many of his fellow-pas- 
sengers, like himself, were genuine " land- 
lubbers"; who had, in the " delsartian " 
schools of elocution, sometimes posed and 



50 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

recited * * * " roll on thou dark and deep 
blue ocean, roll," or sung, "What are the wild 
waves saying?" in Dombey and Son! Some 
of this school were on board, but alas, the 
song and the romance belonged only to the 
land and not to the sea. Introductions were 
taking place and we were " getting ac- 
quainted," each with his companions of the 
voyage. The writer in the center of that then 
joyous company, observed early in the evening 
that the music had hushed — when looking to 
the right and to the left, he saw, one by one, 
"like leaves in wintry weather," our good 
ship's company beating hasty retreats to the 
cabins below ! It was the awful curse — as 
chronic as the moan of the waves — that bore 
down mercilessly upon those "fair women and 
brave men," alike on the Pagan and the Chris- 
tian, the Jew and the Gentile ! There were 
many who did not fall victims in that unequal 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 51 

conflict against defenseless men and women. 
And yet the great ship sails on ! " Commo- 
dore " and captains and sailors before the 
masts, and those abnormal freaks of men and 
mariners who never get sea-sick, are laughing 
at our calamities and mocking as our fear 
cometh ! From such as these, " Good Lord 
and holy angels deliver us ! " 

We were kindly informed by these evangels, 
who were immunes from mal de mere, that 
terrible earthquakes were frequent in Japan, 
and that ships sometimes went down in the 
tempests of eastern oceans. We were further 
assured, not boastfully, that their faith would 
defy all such calamities of land or sea ! Our 
readers will have occasion after reaching Japan 
to recall these incidents en route — outward 
bound. Shipwreck and the earthquake had 
not then come to us, as they did afterwards, 
with terror unknown for a third of a century 



52 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

before. The "Tokio" is now nearing the 
Kurile Islands, and though it is summer-time, 
the winds from " Greenland's Icy Mountains" 
sweep down upon us with their chilling frosts. 
We are near the southernmost fields of the 
whale fisheries. At early morn, the officers of 
the bridge announced " whales in sight ! " We 
forgot for the moment all else, including the 
sickness, and, hurrying to the upper deck, saw 
what old mariners often see in these waters, 
thousands of these mastodons of the deep, 
spouting, like geysers on land, streams of salt 
water from five to twenty feet in height. 
Through all these in that rarest of atmos- 
pheres around the globe, the risen sun flashed 
its rays, forming myriads of the bright colors 
of the prism and the rainbow. It was a beau- 
tiful scene away out on those lonely and path- 
less seas, to watch these "schools" of whales 
gambolling in sport like children on the green, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 53 

utterly fearless of the mighty iron ship which 
cleaved the waves about them. 

We have now turned our course and are 
bearing down to the coast of Japan, sea-sick 
and weary, after twenty-one days. We will 
tax our readers with further recital of inci- 
dents of this, to us memorable voyage, only to 
say that in the last days there were discussions 
in the salons among our passengers ; and 
political as well as religious disputations were 
conducted — strange to say, in brotherly mood 
and temper, and not with the acrimony which 
too often characterizes similar discussions on 
dry land. * * * 



CHAPTER VI. 



v 



APPROACHING JAPAN. 



f/ jfrm\f N the twenty-second day of this 

* IE 9 

* 3 long voyage, we get a view of 
&&&±^>i/ the famous "Sacred Mountain" 
(Fuji-San), which rises many thousand of feet 
above the level of the Pacific. Like a hoary 
monarch, it lifts its eternal granite form to the 
skies, with a crown of snow that never melts, 
upon its head. At its base the orange and 
fruits of the tropics flourish as in perpetual 
summer-time, and every year, the pilgrims 
of Buddha clamber up its heights to greet 
the " rising sun," and worship at the shrines of 
the mountain temples. 

It is their "Mecca," and has been for over 
two thousand years, since the birth of their 

[54] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 55 

great High Priest, Buddha, which occurred more 
than five centuries before the birth of Christ in 
Judea. Their traditions teach them that this 
lofty mountain was consecrated to Buddha, and 
that from its summit he was borne to "Nir- 
vanna." Five hundred millions of worshippers 
are now bowing at the shrine of Buddha, as their 
ancestors did centuries before the birth of Jesus, 
ere the good shepherds followed the " Star of 
Bethlehem," to the cradle of the infant Christ. 
We are now approaching the beautiful shores 
of this wonder-land on the last day of our voy- 
age. It was the realization of the poet's dream 
of beauty, this first near approach to the 
mountains, covered all over with evergreens 
and clinging vines and flowers of every hue, 
from the imperial chrysanthemum to the tender 
violet. Sir Edwin Arnold, in his weird " Light 
of Asia," did not exaggerate in his wonderful 
word-painting these scenes, as first beheld 



56 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

from the deck of an incoming ship. It is now 
the twenty-third day and the last of our voy- 
age. We are now, at sunset, entering the Bay 
of Yeddo, a body of water surpassing in beauty 
that of our own San Francisco, or of far-famed 
Venice by the sea, or the blue ''Aegean" of 
Grecian song. All the officers are at their 
posts on the ship. The " Commodore " and 
officers are on the bridge, and no sailor is per- 
mitted to sleep. Strained eyes and tired limbs 
of the passengers looking and waiting all day 
from the ship's deck toward the shore, have 
closed in sleep, or rested in repose. It is a 
narrow entrance — deep in the mid-channel — 
with treacherous currents and dangerous rocks 
and reefs on either side, thence the ship is 
going under "slow bells," and besides the 
night is Egyptian and the fogs of the Orient 
are hiding even the stars. 

At the hour of midnight the " Commodore " 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 57 

raps at our cabin door. Alone, as we suppose, 
of all that great ship's company, we were 
awake. Quickly we answer the alarm, and are 
told quietly but quickly that our ship is upon a 
granite shelving rock, within sight of the shore, 
having been slowly moved by treacherous cur- 
rents out of the path of the main channel on 
to the rocks. The reef was afterwards ascer- 
tained to have been covered with sea weed, 
and hence, with our slow speed, no great shock 
had been felt by the ship. The announcement 
of " Commodore" Maury of course brought 
all to the deck. We were told of the danger 
that confronted us. The brave old ship that 
had brought us over five thousand miles was 
sinking within sight of Japan ! The ocean 
cables and swift steam craft informed the De- 
partment of the Marine and his Majesty, the 
Emperor, of the imminent danger of the Amer- 
ican ship. The " welcome" promised to us by 



58 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

General Grant was then and there fulfiled, in 
the presence of what we supposed would be 
death in the breakers of the sea, with the ter- 
rible tides going out like torrents. The for- 
ward part of the ship was on the rocks and the 
rear in ten fathoms of water ! Of course the 
great ship would soon break in two, and it was 
only a question of quick time. Then succor 
and relief came speedily and amid thanks to 
Almighty God and our brave officers and 
sailors and especially to the naval and civic 
officers of Japan by whom we were saved. 
These sketches avoid the word-paintings of 
sensational and tragic incidents then occur- 
ring — it is enough to acknowledge the knightly 
assistance of Japan, to whom our good ship's 
company is largely due for their salvation and 
safe arrival at the port of Yokohama. 

There were some scenes on that doomed ship 
at the wreck and at the rescue, illustrating the 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 59 

old proverb that the " bravest are not the most 
boastful," and that the truest Christian who 
clings to the " Rock of Ages," does not pose as 
did the Pharisee on street corners or on decks 
of sinking ships, thanking God that he is not like 
unto other men. Before referring to our land- 
ing in Yokohama, the principal commercial em- 
porium of Japan, we must crave indulgence for a 
moment to repeat what the cablegrams of that 
day, and the Oriental and London and American 
press declared, and truthfully, that on board the 
sinking "Tokio," not one of all the pure de- 
voted women — American or European — lost 
her courage in the presence of threatened death. 
We recall it now as a beautiful vision of the past, 
how wives and daughters, forgetful of danger, 
buckled "life-preservers" around their fright- 
ened husbands and fathers and brothers, and 
poured into their often unheeding ears the 
promises of salvation in the Better Land. 



60 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

But, as in all ages of her glorious record, 
from the Cross to the Sepulchre, she was then 
as now, though frail in body, heroic and stal- 
wart in heart, standing by the side of, and 
ministering to human calamity everywhere 
under the sun. Our Christian women, from 
the Mother of Jesus to this day, are always 
alleviating the sorrows of human hearts when 
breaking, and when the summons comes, 
whether in pestilence or, as then, amid the 
wrecks of ships, or in distant lands, they enter 
the " valley and shadow of death, fearing no 
evil." Thus the author, as he saw them, pays 
this brief but just tribute to our blessed mis- 
sionary-evangels, our wives and daughters and 
sisters in pagan lands. We shall have occa- 
sion hereafter to express the opinion (and our 
reasons for it) that the coming evangelization 
of the -'Far East" will be due more to the 
devoted work of women than of men. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ARRIVAL IN YOKOHAMA ; AND TOKIO, THE 
CAPITAL OF JAPAN. 




T was on the twenty third day 
after our doomed ship, now at 
the bottom of the sea, left San 
Francisco, that we arrived on a Japanese 
vessel at the port of Yokohama. Our welcome 
there was cordial and earnest. We were more 
than six days overdue, and the news of our 
wreck — flashed to the American Legation at 
Tokio and to the palace of the Emperor, and 
to the good missionaries in Japan, and to 
America and Europe — had made the impres- 
sion that our good ship was lost with all on 
board. The correction of this first sad message 

[61] 



62 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

brought thrice hearty and thrilling greetings to 
the rescued. 

We are now on board the railway, English- 
built, going from Yokohama to Tokio, twenty 
miles distant, and the present capital of the 
Empire, known in the days of the Shoguns as 
" Yeddo." We repeat, what we have already 
put on record, that the Bay of neither San Fran- 
cisco nor Venice compares in romantic beauty 
with the Bay of Yeddo. The city, fronting on 
the quay by the sea-shore, is foreign-built; in 
it we recognize the blended English, French, 
and German architectures. The great busi- 
ness-houses, representing the tea and silk 
trade, are mostly controlled by foreigners, who 
have lived here, many of them, for more than 
a third of a century. Some of these great 
tea and silk houses and ''Go-Downs," full of 
precious wares and curios, and of the dry 
goods and general merchandise, are massive 





- 


• 












tKt^ 






•. 




m 

liii 






. ■■■>■ 


% i 

\ 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. G3 

and imposing. The Japanese Government 
buildings in latter years have been mostly con- 
structed on models of European architecture. 
The private residences and streets of the 
foreign merchants (the <l Euclid Avenues " of 
Yokohama) are on the high bluffs overlooking 
the sea, and surrounded by gardens of sur- 
passing loveliness, from whose vine-clad 
verandas the ships of all nations are seen 
coming in or going out, with men-of-war of all 
flags riding at anchor on peaceful waters. 

In the rear of these bluffs of granite and 
behind the front streets and quays, are the 
residences of the " Japanese Quarter." These 
houses are clean but unpretending, built "with- 
out the sound of hammer," as in the days of 
the Temple of Solomon, out of the useful and 
yielding bamboo. We pass these swiftly by 
rail, along the shores of the, sea in sight of the 
military forts erected for the defense of the 



64 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

capital in the time of the revolution, and after 
the overthrow of the Tycoon, and reach in an 
hour the massive railway station of the Govern- 
ment at Tokio. We are here met by our dis- 
tinguished predecessor, the Honorable John A. 
Bingham, of Ohio, for thirteen useful years the 
able Minister of our country to Japan. He 
was accompanied by his staff, and official repre- 
sentatives of the Emperor and his Cabinet, and 
they were all introduced to us by United States 
Minister Bingham and that bright and culti- 
vated American, the Honorable H. W. Denni- 
son, who for many years had been and is yet, 
the "Foreign Legal Advisor" and " Counsel- 
lor of the Imperial Cabinet of Japan," and 
especially of the Department of Foreign Affairs. 
We were also met by the Secretary of Lega- 
tion, Mr. Edwin Dunn, afterwards United 
States Minister. For the first time we got a 
glimpse of u Old Japan." Instead of on 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 65 

palanquins and kangos of mediaeval days, we 
are borne in a splendid modern equipage 
drawn by black stallions of China, and driven 
by Japanese "jehus," with traditional out- 
riding " bettoes " crying, "Clear the way" in 
advance, running on swift feet far ahead, for 
safety, for the streets are thronged by native 
pedestrians, and in this land the cities have no 
" side-walks," and the streets are crowded from 
side to side both day and night. 

Approaching the United States Legation 
Building, we see with patriotic pride, the flag 
of our country flying from its heights and 
waving its graceful greetings to the coming as 
well as to the departing Minister. The winds 
of the sea, on whose shores it stands, kiss its 
folds with gentle dalliance, while from the great 
war-ships of the Empire far down on those 
distant waters, comes back the roar and 
thunder of the greeting of their guns in salute 



66 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAB EAST. 

to the new American Minister's arrival at his 
official home in Japan. // was Japan s welcome 
to America. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



AT THE UNITED STATES LEGATION. 



f^ujjF^ \\ HE writer need not dwell on detail, 



nn 

i /he needs to say only that what- 

^^M^£g/ ever our country could contribute 
to his comfort and equipment for usefulness in 
his diplomatic duties, was liberally contributed 
by that Legation Building of the American 
Ministers. He had a choice library, comprising 
almost all authorities, ancient and modern, on 
International Law and the laws of o.ur country, 
and many standard books of American and 
European authorship were there of law and 
literature and science. The complete records 
of the Legation were there of all the years 
since the treaty which " Commodore " Perry 
negotiated with Japan, beginning with Town- 

[67] 



68 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

send Harris, the first great American diplomat 
in the East, and closing with Bingham, not less 
renowned, up to the succession of the present 
administration. The building was comfortable, 
but not palatial, illustrating our old time Re- 
publican and Democratic simplicity and hospi- 
tality rather than toadying and imitating the 
elaborate architecture of modern schools. 

The American Legation, as organized in 
June, 1885, under our administration, was as 
follows : Richard Bennett Hubbard, of Texas, 
United States of America, Envoy Extraordi- 
nary and Minister Plenipotentiary ; Honorable 
Frederick S. Mansfield, of Texas, Secretary of 
Legation ; Honorable Edwin Dunn, Second 
Secretary ; Dr. W. N. Whitney, of Pennsyl- 
vania, Interpreter ; Hosakawa Kyosha Kyoai 
and Ukita Kadzutomi, Assistant Interpreters. 
The author deems it pertinent to a proper 
understanding of subsequent discussions of the 




Frederick S. Mansfield, United States Secretary of Legation to 
Japan. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 69 

evolution and changes in the local and political 
government of Japan, as well as of her changed 
relations to the United States and other treaty 
powers, that our American readers should be 
advised of the personnel of the Japanese Court, 
of his Majesty, the Emperor, his Premier 
and Imperial Ministers for Foreign Affairs and 
his Cabinet. Through these high officers the 
Ministers of all treaty nations conducted their 
diplomatic negotiations, in observance of their 
respective treaties of amity and commerce. 

At the time we arrived at this court and pre- 
sented our credentials to the Emperor, the 
then, as now, reigning Sovereign was his im- 
perial Majesty the Emperor — 

Muts-huto, 
who succeeded to the throne of Japan under 
an unbroken and undisputed chain of title of a 
Dynasty having its origin in the Seventh cen- 
tury before the Christian era. 



70 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

His Cabinet was composed of the following 
eminent men of the civil and military service — 
to-wit : 

The Minister President of State or Premier 
was Count Ito Hirobumi. 

The Minister of Foreign Affairs was Count 
Inouye Kaoru; his able American Advisers and 
Law Counselors were Hon. H. W. Dennison 
and Hon. D. W. Stevens. 

The Minister for War was Lieutenant- Gen- 
eral Count Oyama. 

The Minister of the Navy was Lieutenant- 
General Count Saigo. 

The Minister of Education was Count Mori. 

The Minister of Home Affairs was General 
Count Yamagata. 

The Minister of Communications was Admi- 
ral Enomoto. 

With most of these representative men the 
reader will become familiar, if not so already, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 71 

from their historic connection with the life of 
new Japan, its marvellous strides to the front 
in latter days, in every department of the 
higher civilization, and their leadership in the 
cabinet and in the field in the late war with 
China, and their subsequent and present rela- 
tions of a far more than diplomatic friendship 
with the United States of America, incident to 
the Hispano-American War. 

At the period of which we write, the rivalry 
between the treaty powers for supremacy of 
control of the trade of Japan and China and 
Corea was intense if not, at times, bitter. 
Their old treaties with the United States and 
Great Britian of the time of " Commodore" 
Perry, and subsequently with Germany and 
France, in the estimation of Japan, belonged to 
that age of her history ere she had emerged 
from the night of hermitism and intolerance of 
church and state, into the light of the new day, 



72 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

when she felt herself entitled to co-equal po- 
litical self-government with the enlightened 
nations of the earth. 

Hence, as a result of her petition, the treaty 
powers, by common Protocol, agreed with Japan 
to organize an International Conference to con- 
vene at Tokio in 1885 to consider, with plenary 
powers, the revision of the treaties with that 
Empire, which had begun in 1882. Before 
sketching, therefore, the discussions and results 
of that, the most important body of diplomats 
ever assembled in the Orient, a body of which 
the then American Minister was a member — 
by special commission of his government, — it is 
apropos that our readers should know the Min- 
isters or Ambassadors of the Foreign Powers 
with whom the United States were associated 
during our ministry and during that conference 
which lasted nearly three years of our official 
life in Japan. Great Britain's Minister was Sir 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 73 

Frances Plunkett; the German Empire's Min- 
ister was Dr. Baron Von Holleben ; France's 
Minister was Monsieur A. Sinkaweitz ; Russia's 
Minister was Hon. Mons. D. Shcvreitch ; 
Italy's Minister was Signor De Martino ; 
Austria's Minister was Count Zulaski, and 
there were others who will be named hereafter. 
These were the representatives of the great 
powers having the most important political and 
commercial relations with Japan. Our own 
countrymen will become better acquainted with 
the American status of that day among Euro- 
pean and Oriental Powers as voiced in debates 
of the treaty conference — literally preserved 
by the most accomplished official stenogra- 
phers, under oath and seal of secrecy as were 
the members of the conference at the time ; 
but from which conference the seal of secrecy 
has now been removed by consent of all the 
powers. 



CHAPTER IX. 



America's day at court. 



ra^ 



i 




*\^N the last days of June, 1885, 
the recently-appointed American 
&£****£& Minister received from His Ex- 
cellency, Count Inouye, Minister of State for 
Japan's Foreign Affairs, his official call (at the 
United States Legation), and was courteously 
notified that His Majesty, the Emperor, and 
Her Majesty, the Empress, would be pleased 
to give official audience to the American Min- 
ister and his Lady at the Palace! The day 
was designated. The author had been some- 
what familiar with the simple forms and cere- 
monies of our American receptions and in- 
augurals of Governors and Presidents ; but 
had never before witnessed, much less been 

[74] 




His Imperial Majesty, The Emperor of Japan. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 75 

an actor in, the gilded receptions of an 
ambassador or minister in the palaces of kings. 
It has been the custom for ages in the far 
East, on such days, for the Emperor to send 
his carriages of state, covered with gold and 
glitter, with the accompaniment of military and 
civic heraldry, to bear a new Minister of any 
Treaty Nation to the palace, to present his 
credentials and to be received persona grata 
at the court. In this presentation we followed 
in the role of our predecessors. The magnifi- 
cent grounds and gardens in which the palace 
was located were surrounded by ancient walls, 
as in the centuries and centuries ago, and by 
moats, as in the feudal times. On this occa- 
sion, at our approach, followed in state by the 
ministers and their ladies of all the other 
Treaty Powers, the bugles are sounded and 
the soldiers and sailors " present arms," as 
through the now-open gates and ranks the 



76 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

American Minister and his wife and his lega- 
tion staff pass down to and alight at the steps 
of the palace. Princes and princesses and 
ladies in waiting are present to greet and 
usher the American representative and his 
lady to the throne-room. We are told by the 
Lord Chamberlain — through our American in- 
terpreter — that court etiquette required Minis- 
ters of American or European Governments, 
at their reception and presentation at court, to 
pass down the aisles of the palace, bowing 
lowly three times to His Majesty as they go. 
The same requirement is made, gently, of the 
wife of the American Minister, as she passed 
down the opposite aisle to the throne of Her 
Majesty, the Empress. This ancient etiquette 
also required, on retiring from the imperial 
presence, that one must never turn his back 
upon royalty, but must go backward bowing 
and still facing the throne, to the palace doors 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 77 

through which he entered ! To this regulation 
of the court we only partially conformed our 
movements, with the same sort of courtesy 
recognized in the Executive mansions of Ameri- 
can States, or at the "White House" at Wash- 
ington, in the receptions of the Presidents and 
Governors on the anniversaries of the Re- 
public. Being presented by our predecessor, 
and delivering our credentials, our address to 
the Emperor was not perfunctory, but brief 
and wholly devoted to expressing our deep 
appreciation of the knightly welcome and cour- 
tesy we had received. We embraced the 
opportunity thus presented of offering the 
hand of national fellowship and a prayer for 
a continuance of the traditional relations of 
friendship between the Empire and the Re- 
public. The reply of his Majesty we give 
substantially. Speaking through the official 
interpreter of the court, he said : 



78 THE VNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

" The Empire welcomes, earnestly welcomes the 
American Minister as the representatative of the 
United States of America to our court and country. 
From the day when the great American Commo- 
dore Perry negotiated peacefully a treaty of amity 
and commerce with Japan, our mutual relations 
have been cordial, savoring more of love than of 
mere formal and friendly expressions of good 
neighborhood. Hence, when your good ship had 
entered our waters, the court heard with sorrow 
and dismay of the wreck of the vessel. But when 
we heard soon afterwards that by your own brave 
seamen and the succor which Japan only too gladly 
sent to your relief, all were rescued from the 
wreck, our joy was unspeakable. In all these 
years of, to us at least, a memorable past, the 
United States has always been our earnest and un- 
selfish friend. Your illustrious Presidents and your 
Congress and your own predecessors at this court 
were the first of all the Treaty nations to take us 
by the hand in good fellowship and in congratula- 
tion for the honest endeavors Japan had made, and 
is still making, to attain the highest good for our 
national life. 

" Your country has been the first to recognize 
our progress and education in courts of judicature, 
in finance, and in our adoption of a representative 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 79 

parliament for our people, and of our toleration, 
enforced by treaty, of all religious beliefs, notwith- 
standing forty millions of Japanese still worship in 
the old temples of our ancestors. 

"Other Treaty Powers have been and are our 
friends; but without unjust or invidious reflection, 
Japan acknowledges a deeper national obligation 
to the great country you represent than to any 
other of the Powers. In this spirit we welcome 
you to our court, trusting that your administration 
will make yet stronger the chain of friendship and 
commercial interest which has so long united us 
together." 

The foregoing is, in substance, the free trans- 
lated reply of the Emperor. The remarkable 
feature of this speech from the throne, was its 
lack of policy and diplomacy, in placing the 
United States on a higher plane of confidence 
and love than was accorded to any other Power. 
We cannot, in justice to our American country- 
women, permit this opportunity to pass with- 
out also recording the brief but gentle and 
womanly response of the Empress to the lady 



80 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

of the American Minister on her presentation 
at court. 

That beautiful and cultured woman, the 
lineal successor to a long line of kings and 
queens, spoke feelingly and earnestly, these 
words to her American sister : 

"The Empress joins His Majesty in rejoicing at 
your rescue from the wreck of the " Tokio." In 
behalf of the women of Japan, I bid you, Madame, 
a most affectionate welcome to our court and 
country. Many years ago, and before our day, 
your mothers and sisters came to this old land of 
ours, bearing with their husbands and kindred and 
friends, to us new and strange messages of love 
and peace, but they came with gentleness and 
sincere entreaty. They brought with them a desire 
and resolution to teach to our women-subjects the 
higher and the truer mission and dignity of woman- 
hood. American women, aided by their European 
sisters, but American women especially, have 
taught our sisters and daughters the learning of 
the schools of the West, and that in their home 
and social life they deserve to occupy the same 
plane with their brothers in Japan. So that 
to-day Japan points with pride and gratitude to 




of Japan, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 81 

her imperial and public free schools and colleges 
for the education of our daughters, whether of the 
nobles or of the coolies, and we owe it more 
largely to American womanhood than to any other 
cause on the earth ; and for all this we welcome 
you and yours to our court, with the warmth that 
we can feel but cannot fully express/' 

That scene was to an American, standing as 
we did in the palace of an Empire older than 
Roman or Grecian dynasties, an inspiring and 
thrilling one, exciting afresh our love for our 
native land and our prayers for the future of 
Japan. No citizen of the Republic can ever 
realize how deep in his heart of hearts is his 
love for his native land until he leaves her 
shores and compares her free and majestic 
institutions and constitutional liberties with the 
king-craft and despotic rule of the dynasties of 
the Old World. 



CHAPTER X. 



PHYSICAL FEATURES AND PRODUCTIONS AND 
MATERIAL WEALTH AND RESOURCES OF JAPAN. 





j^'Ofc-^n 


*^3>3?W^^. 


p. 


p^iP 




p-*k 


[ ^'tl^U ^rU 1 



EFORE discussing-, as we observed, 
the evolutions and progress gen- 
erally of Japan and her relations 
to this country in latter days, it is fitting that 
we invite our readers to a brief outline of its 
physical features and productions and material 
wealth and resources, with which an area not 
quite half as large as the great State of Texas, 
feeds and clothes and maintains forty millions 
of subjects in peace and plenty, besides an 
imperial establishment and an army and navy 
and a great export trade, which in recent years 
has not only commanded but won the respect 
of all nations. We shall not go into minute 

[82] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 83 

details, giving routes and inklings by the way- 
side as have the traditional " globe-trotters," 
flitting on swift wings, drawing skeleton maps, 
and gleaning from the geographies of the out- 
of-print histories of the Empire of half a century 
agone. It is rather the headlands only, the 
important and distinguishing marks of practi- 
cal interest to our American countrymen that 
we shall attempt to describe. Brief reference 
has already been made to the forestry and 
flora and the fruits and the life sustaining pro- 
ductions of the soil of Japan. 

Of the forestry growth of Japan, the most 
important are the indigenous bamboo cane, the 
evergreen oak, the northern pine and fir tree, 
and a tree resembling the famed "red wood" 
of California. Most of the deciduous tree types 
of our American forests are found here. The 
cottages of the people, forty millions in num- 
ber, are erected sometimes of this fine old red 



84 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

wood, but generally with the bamboo cane. 
It is used for thatching the roof, for their 
sliding-panel-doors — for everything, in fine, 
useful or ornamental for the home. 

The tender buds are used for food, the 
large-sized canes for water-pipes and mains, 
and with the seasoned cane their skilled 
artisans fashion the most beautiful, as well as 
useful, household furniture and valuable curios 
for commerce. In their more northern forests 
of Yesso, the bear, the largest known to the 
animal world, is found, and the ape in the 
lower latitudes. The tiger and the leopard, of 
a less ferocious type, also exist in the far 
interor and among the mountains. 

Of domestic animals, the horses are few, 
and so as to cattle and sheep, and especially 
swine, which last, though the great delicacy of 
Chinese epicures, is never reared or consumed 
in Japan. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 85 

Of their birds, we briefly remark that there 
is but little difference between those in Japan 
and in America. The quail and pheasant and 
the wild and domestic duck and the reed-bird 
are the bird game for food, the stork being the 
national bird, and consecrated by their poets 
in song and by their painters and sculptors on 
canvas and in bronze. 

The fishes of Japan contribute the principal 
and almost only meat food of the Empire, and 
their infinite variety and excellence are inex- 
haustible in supply. Often in American waters, 
inland or in the bays of the sea, by depredation 
and poaching, as in the seal fishing, the fresh 
water fish as well as the shad and salmon 
and mackerel and cod, become seriously 
diminished in supply. Not so in Japan. To 
their scientific classification we make no pre- 
tense. The " Isaac Wal tons " who have luck 
and leisure and gold, can in twelve days, by 



86 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST, 

steamer from San Francisco or from Vancouver, 
enjoy the finest fishing ground in the world. 
The game salmon of Yeddo surpass our own 
of Oregon, and their "Tye" of the bays of 
Nippon are gamer and more delicate to the 
palate than the famous speckled trout of the 
Adirondacks. Unfortunately, the shell fish of 
Japan, like those on the Pacific slope, are use- 
less, being copperish in taste and unfit for the 
table. 

A country with such a population, vastly dis- 
proportioned to its territory to support, calls 
for constant fertilization and preservation of its 
soil as an absolute necessity. For thousands 
of years, so their traditions run, every foot of 
land from the lowlands by the sea, or on her 
inland waters, or at the summit or sides of her 
mountains where a tree can be planted or a 
vine be made to grow, by artificial earth and 
culture, has been utilized by constant daily 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 87 

application of every character of fertilizer and 
phosphites, and the cities and towns and • 
country folk residences are forced by law to 
send every particle of decayed vegetable mat- 
ter or animal or human excrement, in covered 
boats in earthen vessels on the canals or rivers 
or in carts drawn by the native coolies or by 
the Indian buffalo oxen, down to the rice-fields 
by the sea or inland waters, to the tea and silk 
fields, to the orchards and vineyards, and the 
incomparable vegetable gardens, where with 
deft hands every day of the whole year the 
lands are enriched and preserved beyond that 
of any other part of the known world. Hence, 
the Medical Faculty in Japan tell us that this 
necessary observance of hygiene and the laws 
of health among their forty millions of people 
gives to them a 25 per centum less death rate 
than in European or American States, except 
only the northern nations of Europe. It is a 



88 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

fortunate fact that frost or snow, in latitude 35 
degrees down to the farthest southern limit of 
24 degrees, not more than once in fifteen or 
twenty years blights or blasts the ripening 
fruits or crops or flowers of the Empire. 

The Christian world, while accepting the 
theory of the Savants and chemists, that this 
comparative exemption from vegetable death 
before its time is due to the peculiar character 
of that atmosphere, and the volcanic winds 
blowing landward from the sea, is inclined to 
assert right reverently that a merciful Provi- 
dence has had more to do with the exemption 
than the theories of the chemists. 

Admitting both to be true, in whole or in 
part, we found, whatever its cause, that not a 
suggestion even of fragrance was possessed 
by any fruit or flower in all Japan ; not even 
the imported jassamine or the " sweet-scented 
shrubs " of the wild-wood of our boyhood in 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 89 

Western lands had any more odor than the 
block of granite at our feet. And yet their 
oranges, especially the seedless " Chieu Shu" 
variety, their persimmons, their plums and ber- 
ries and pineapples of the far south, and their 
vineyards of luscious grape, possessed, never- 
less, all the saccharine properties of the same 
fruits of Europe or America. Strange but 
true ! 

The great remunerative commerce of Japan 
is in her tea and silk and rice, and precious 
wares known in commerce as " China wares," 
her copper and lacquers and curios. On their 
raw silks and teas, there is no import duty to 
America. They are duty-free / Of these two 
articles alone, this country imports nearly thirty 
millions in value annually. Our export and 
import trade with Japan combined in round 
numbers will, it is estimated, in the present 
year of 1898, reach forty millions of dollars. 



90 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

Her trade with England has fallen below that 
with the United States, and yet the "balance 
of trade " is against both Great Britain and the 
United States and in favor of Japan. And so 
it is in less degree with all other nations — 
Germany and France ranking next to the 
United States and England in the volume and 
value of exports and imports — in their trade 
relations with Japan. 

The people live on fish for meat, unsur- 
passed in quantity and quality, found in the 
mountain streams or in the bays all around 
their islands. Their bread is rice, and their 
beverage is native tea. Their clothing is chiefly 
silk, all of which is grown and gathered, and 
afterwards woven in their own looms, in ample 
quantity to clothe forty millions of people, be- 
sides furnishing an export trade all around the 
globe, of this staple product, of over one hun- 
dred millions dollars annually in British ster- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 91 

ling. Their daily food costs, in silver coin, on 
an average, only from three to five cents per 
day for each adult, and that discounted there 
as here by the exacting gold exchanges of 
Europe, who fix the prices of Japanese silver 
every day in the Bank of England. They eat 
no animal food. Fish and fowl and eggs and 
rice and fruits and all varieties of vegetables 
and sweet-meats and the " sugar " cane and 
" sugar" beet, which grow to marvellous per- 
fection in taste and richness ; these constitute 
the menu, so to speak, of Japanese life. The 
wages of the laborer is graded and classified ; 
a master mechanic, one who understands the 
architecture of his country and can build a 
temple or a palace, receives daily not more 
than fifty to sixty cents in silver coin. The 
same laborer here would command from five 
to ten dollars in gold. Yet the purchasing 
power of the Japanese mechanic's wages is, 



92 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

for what he wants in living and clothes, about 
equal to the European or American laborer's 
or mechanic's wages of the same grade. The 
silk with which the coolie clothes his family, 
who live in a bamboo cottage of thatched roof, 
costing not as much as five silver dollars in the 
national coin, costs him far less than the prints 
or shirtings, or especially linens or woolens, of 
European or American mills, transported five 
thousand miles as they are to him across the 
sea. His wife and daughters and little ones 
are clad in silks gathered by their own hand's 
from the mulberry and cocoons, and spun and 
woven at their own humble homes, as did our 
grandmothers in "ye olden time" spin and 
weave the hemp or the cotton by the "spin- 
ning jenny," the domestic loom and shuttle 
and hand-cards now obsolete and discarded, 
and almost forgotten in America. The rice 
for bread and the tea for drink and fish for 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 93 

meat, are staple products, and these, including 
fruits and vegetables of the garden, for each 
stalwart laboring man cost on an average, as 
we have stated, only from three to five cents 
per day ! The people never seem in want or 
hungry. In a residence of over four years, 
mingling largely with the native population of 
all classes, the writer does not recall a single 
instance of meeting a professional beggar. 

The climatic features may be compared 
favorably with those of the United States of 
the same latitude and longitude. In latitude 
32 degrees to 35 in our country, the ther- 
mometer often rises in summer to 105 degrees 
Fahrenheit, while in Japan, in the same lati- 
tude it seldom rises higher than 80 to 85 
degrees. And yet foreigners find it almost 
beyond endurance to live in the capital (Tokio) 
in July or August with the mercury at 80 
degrees, because of the sultry, close humidity 



94 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

of the atmosphere which makes breathing diffi- 
cult and at times even painful. The natives 
are acclimated, but all foreigners find it a 
necessity to go to the mountains where the 
climate is cool and invigorating, and bathing 
in the thermal waters of the famous hot springs 
or spouting geysers insures the most delightful 
and health-giving outings in mid-summer. It is 
the testimony of intelligent travelers and med- 
ical men, as it is our own, that the winds and 
waters at Nikko, Myanoshita, and Hakoni, 
and Kusatsu, and other places of less fame, 
for the salubrity of climate and curative prop- 
erties of their healing thermal waters, have 
no equal at Baden-Baden, Saratoga, the Hot 
Springs, of Arkansas, or the famed Manitou, of 
our Colorado of the West. Their mountains 
extending from sea to sea, the Hakoni being 
the longest range, have an average elevation 
of 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, and 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 95 

traverse the entire island of Nippon from its 
eastern to its western boundaries. The highest 
of these mountains is Fusiyama or "Sacred 
Mountain," eighty miles from Tokio, the capi- 
tal, and is estimated at 14,000 feet. Its summit 
is covered with perpetual snow. It was once an 
active volcano but has been extinct since 1707. 

In the northern island of Yesso, the moun- 
tains rise to 8,000 feet among- wild and vener- 
able forests, as yet largely unexplored, although 
in a land three hundred centuries old, and from 
which forty millions of people draw their suste- 
nance from the soil of an area of only 128,000 
square miles. 

The rivers are very numerous, but clear, 
and rising among the mountains, ordinarily 
shallow, but during the "wet seasons" and 
" freshets " the streams become torrents, dash- 
ing down to the sea, often carrying wreck and 
ruin in their pathway. 



96 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Often among the mountain ranges, from 
which Sir Edwin Arnold has added another of 
many romantic names and called Japan the 
" Switzerland of the Orient," — among these 
mountains are found lakes as clear as crystal, 
thousands of feet above the sea level, which, 
though making no pretension to size, are 
beautiful to the eye and almost as cold as ice, 
fed as they are by the melted snows or the 
unfailing springs from the mountains. There 
is but one fresh-water lake of any pretensions 
to size in Japan, and that is known as " Biwa," 
near the ancient capital of Kyoto. It is ten 
miles in width and thirty-five miles long, con- 
necting by steamer and sail Kyoto with Osaca, 
the second great city of the Empire. That and 
the lesser inland waters of Hakoni require but 
a little stretch of fancy to recall to memory the 
graphic picture of the "Lake of Como " of 
Bulwer's drama of "The Lady of Lyons." 




Blood Cascade. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 97 

The cities of Japan are numerous. In fact, 
the observation of the writer showed that the 
instinct of the Japanese was gregarious, and 
from the fishermen by the sea through all 
classes and castes, from prince to peasant, 
they prefer to live in villages, towns, or cities. 
There is properly, from a Western standpoint, 
no country life in any part of the Empire. 
They cultivate the lands from moorlands to 
mountain sides, but the laborers radiate from a 
common center town or village to these culti- 
vated gardens and fields. The largest and 
most populous of the cities is Tokio (known 
before the destruction of the Shoguns as 
"Yeddo"), of a million and five hundred 
thousand inhabitants, the present capital at the 
head of the Bay of Yeddo, where the beautiful 
" Sumida-Gawa" enters the sea. 

It is a picture of " Old Japan," and though 
eing recently a treaty port, foreign ships of 



98 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

commerce do not come to its wharves because 
of the shallowness of its harbors. Five miles 
below there is deep water. Here are the 
palaces of the Emperor and of the Old 
Daimaios, or Princess of the days of Feudalism. 
The walls and moats are still mostly intact and 
v/onderfully preserved. Their temples, some 
thousands of them, dedicated to Buddhism and 
Shintoism, are here. Some of them are of 
magnificent proportions and illustrate the 
palmy days of Oriental architecture. The 
" Temple of Sheba," so the writer has been 
told by archeologists and those who pretend to 
be versed in the religious cults and creeds and 
history of the church of Buddha, was named for 
that veritable queen of the East, whom the 
Hebrew Bible records as visiting the "Temple 
of Solomon." It may be, and we suppose is, 
a myth and figment of fancy — one of the 
legends of the old land. The fancy pictures 




High Priest of Shintoism. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 99 

of " Solomon's Temple," on which we gazed 
with reverent admiration in our youth time, 
are nearly all of them literal copies of this and 
other great temples of Kyoto and Nikko from 
paintings which were made of them by Italian 
masters, by order of the Roman Pontiff, and 
which are now in the Vatican at Rome, with 
copies in the famous galleries of art on the 
continent. Here are the Parliament buildings 
and the Imperial University, the Governor's 
palace with spacious structures for hospitals 
and asylums for the insane, the blind, and deaf 
and dumb, and the helpless infant and pauper. 
The modern palace, erected in the last decade 
on the ashes of the former one, is a splendid 
structure, combining Oriental and Western 
architecture. The great reception or throne 
room of this palace has been compared to the 
"Alhambra" of the days of Spanish chivalry 
and power. 

L.ofC. 



100 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

The residences of the foreign settlements 
are in what is called "Ske-ji" (the English 
pronunciation), a concession fronting on the 
sea, where all the missionaries and other 
foreigners live, and where the United States 
Legation was then located. The Legations of 
all the Treaty Powers, and the United States 
Legation now, are located in separate and 
spacious grounds in the main city and outside 
of the " concession." The English Legation 
buildings are. costly and magnificent, valued at 
a quarter of a million of gold. Next in size 
and value are the German and French Lega- 
tions. To each of these Legations, including 
the Russian, from twenty to thirty thousand 
dollars in gold is given by their governments 
for an " entertainment fund," to expend with 
lavish hand in the diplomatic season. The 
United States has no such fund. 

The second city in size in Japan is Osaca, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 101 

containing, it is now estimated, a population of 
over eight hundred thousand. It is a treaty or 
open port, and is the "Wall street" of Japan. 
The canals, as in Tokio, are numerous, and its 
bridges at every intersection of the streets are 
often exceedingly handsome. Along these 
canals are borne from the great ships from 
their own and foreign lands the commerce of 
every clime, and down the same water-ways 
are carried to the harbor their teas and silks 
and rice and curios and costly wares for foreign 
ports. 

If in Venice, these beautiful waters by moon- 
light would bear the graceful gondola with 
songs of lovers to the accompaniment . of 
the guitar or the harp, recalling the ancient 
troubadours, pictured in song and story. Here 
is located also the second largest mint in the 
world. 

The next city in size, and now the most 



102 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

important commercial port of the Empire, is 
Yokohama on the sea, twenty miles from the 
capital, and connected with Tokio by a govern- 
ment English-built railroad, making hourly 
trips, and by steam craft on the bay (now for 
travel almost obsolete) . We have heretofore 
in brief made mention of this last port. It has 
absorbed the once rival city of Kanagawa hard 
by, on whose historic waters the war-ships of 
the great American Commodore Perry rode at 
anchor when on peaceful mission, and by skill 
ful and unselfish diplomacy, without the sound 
of a gun from his ships, he opened the closed 
gates of this old Hermit nation, shut against 
all, foreigners for three hundred years. It is a 
broad and secure harbor, and on the sea side 
has every appearance of an American or 
I European port. 

The next in size and importance are Kobe 
and Nagasaki. But we will tax our readers 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 103 

with these geographical data only to say that 
all these principal cities are connected at this 
day by railways or by steamers or by old 
national overland highways like the " Tokio- 
ado" and the " Nakasendo," over which for 
centuries the trade of the nation was borne to 
the ocean and the armies of Japan marched in 
peace or war. 

These highways are still kept in perfect 
repair by the Government of the "Fus" or 
States through which they pass. Over them 
thousands of " ginrikishas," a sort of enlarged 
baby carriage, drawn and pushed by the 
athletic and swift-footed coolies, are constantly 
going and returning as if in the main streets in 
a great city. The coolies charge the passen- 
gers (they carry two) only twenty-five to thirty 
cents in silver for thirty miles, and bear their 
own expenses. 



CHAPTER XL 




EARTHQUAKES. 

f. 

1 HIS chapter on the physical char- 
acteristics of Japan would be in- 
complete — the play of " Hamlet " 
with the Prince of Denmark left out — were we 
to fail in paying our respects to the earth- 
quakes of Japan. There are now eighteen 
active volcanoes in Japan, Asami and Yamei 
being the principal ones. They are the 
u escape" or "safety-valves" for the exit of 
gases and subterranean forces of the earth. 
Their origin and cause — all that curious 
and scientific discussion — we relegate to the 
Savants who have made a study of seismology 
in Japan. 

It will be our purpose briefly to tell our 
[1041 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 105 

readers of our forced introduction to these 
startling exhibitions of the volcano and earth- 
quake in action. 

To begin with, we were told by the most 
eminent scholar and professor in the Imperial 
University of Japan, and famed in science 
around the world (Prof. John Milne), that the 
center or radiating point of the earthquakes 
of Japan was about underneath the city of 
Tokio, where we proposed to reside during 
our ministry ! Until these unpleasant revela- 
tions we were in blissful ignorance of these 
terrible upheavals of nature save as gleaned 
from the tragic stories of Vesuvius and Her- 
culaneum and Pompeii, and the destruction of 
Lisbon, of a later age. But these even had 
faded away into a sort of romantic memory to 
awaken quickly when this great Professor said 
to us seriously, that with the coming of the 
winter-time the author would have ocular evi- 



106 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

dence and demonstration that he was in 
Japan — quiet at intervals, like a lion chained 
to his cage, but anon leaping from the caverns 
of sea and earth, and shaking both, and 
threatening all living creatures therein with 
death ! Fortunately, these most destructive 
visitations come only three or four times in 
a hundred years. No scientific doctor can 
"diagnose" an earthquake, and tell from pre- 
ceding symptoms, the quiver of the earth or 
the restless waves of the sea, how mild or how 
terrific the shock is going to be, in the finale. 
And hence the only advice given to the "inno- 
cents" from "abroad" is at the first shake to 
make for the open, and neither to stand nor 
tarry on the order of his going ; stopping not a 
moment to arrange the toilet or gather gold 
and silver, but as he is, breaking all former 
records for speed, if possible, in rushing for 
the streets. These startling facts for the first 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 107 

time were narrated to the writer, of course after 
his arrival in Japan. If it had been before our 
sailing from America, it might have been possi- 
ble if not probable, under the then untried 
political doctrine of "civil service reform," 
that our distinguished predecessor, who for 
thirteen years had honored himself and his 
country in that high station of American 
Embassador, might have been allowed to re- 
main undisturbed at the court of the Mikado. 
We have heretofore had occasion, when sea- 
sick and weary, to listen to recitals of good 
missionaries who had felt earthquakes, and 
assurances strong in the faith of the Master, of 
others who had never been in Japan, that they 
would welcome even an earthquake as the 
voice and act of God, and would "fear no 
evil." In the second year's winter of our stay 
in Japan, after frequent but mild exhibitions of 
these uncanny visitors, there came one of a 



108 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

heroic character just before the dawn. It was 
one of those awful demonstrations which at 
the first rap at the door of the sleeper finds 
him awake and flying for his life to the sea- 
side. It was, fortunately, not destructive, but 
it was fully as demoralizing as the great earth- 
quake of 1855 m tn i s sam e city, where over 
one hundred thousand people lost their lives in 
a fearful upheaval. 

The earthquake is now on ! The great 
Legation building quivers like an aspen leaf, 
and quicker than ever before or since we rush 
to the quay. We found a pale-faced, ghostly- 
looking multitude who had just preceded us. 
They were robed in spotless white, and many on 
bended knees strove to appease the wrath of 
the gods of the earthquake and the storm. 

It was our first experience, the first move- 
ment in force of the "main army" in our 
front. (Has the reader ever felt one?) The 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 109 

whole earth is shaking as if in a fit of ague, 
and reeling to and fro, seemingly, as a drunken 
man, and the high hills and loftier mountains 
appear to bow and swing like pendulums, 
while fancied explosions in the unfathomable 
earth below transfix the helpless men and 
women who couch in fear. [The Japanese 
afterwards told us that these supposed explo- 
sions were the crash and war of the tidal waves 
coming to the shore.] The air appeared to be 
filled with the smell of sulphur, the "fire and 
brimstone " of the old-folk lore of our ancient 
nurses, hushing us to silence. 

It seemed hours, but it was all over within 
the limits of twenty minutes. Thankful to 
Almighty God, we have reason to know that 
in a serious earthquake men ask His mercy 
who never did before. We feel now that the 
world is steadying* on its normal axis and 

righting itself as a ship and answering to the 

10 



110 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

helm of the pilot in the tempest of the ocean. 
It is over I The picture is not overdrawn. 
Human language becomes a beggar in finding 
words to express the sublime terror and awful 
exhibition of the power of the Almighty in the 
midst of such a scene in the Far East. 

Yet after the curtain drops on the tragedy, 
there are often humorous incidents that (only 
when the performance has closed) amuse the 
actors in the cast, looking backward. So it 
was in our experience. Looking up from our 
Legation and along the sea walls, we saw 
approaching us a distinguished American visi- 
tor and " globe-trotter," who greeted us 
smilingly, asking the wholly useless question, 
" How did you stand the earthquake?" He 
was our guest and had won his spurs in the 
Union army against the "Lost Cause," to 
which latter we had belonged, and we gave 
him credit for courage, but did not relish being 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. Ill 

taunted with such an inquiry at such a time ! 
We said to our friend, "That all our lives we 
had made it a rule never to laugh at a man's 
calamities or mock when his fear cometh. 
That if he would kindly tell us when and where 
his laugh came in, we would be hugely obliged." 
To this he made the generous "amende honor- 
able." "Excuse me, but my smile was in re- 
membering the dear old Christian missionary 
from our common country, who told you during 
the voyage and at the wreck of your ship, that 
' trusting in the promises of the Redeemer, he 
was sure of being undisturbed in heart or hope 
in wrecks or earthquakes, or even at the jaws 
of death.' Well, it so happened that I knew 
this good man, then coming for the first time 
to Japan, away back in our boyhood. In the 
midst of this last terrible shake-up, coming 
down to your Legation, I heard a familiar voice 
rising above the moans and thunder of the 



112 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

waves. He was in prayer on his 'ebeneezers,' 
right by the shore. These were his words, and 
in no spirit of sacrilege do I repeat them : 
' Oh, God, look at the mountains ! Dost Thou 
not feel Thy foot-stool shaking to pieces ? and 
wilt Thou not help Thy poor servant in this 
awful hour? Oh, Almighty Power, if there 
ever was a time to show Thy mercy to a poor 
lost and helpless sinner, now is the time to 
show it! Come, come quickly, and come 
Yourself, and don't send Your Son, our Father, 
who art in heaven ! ' " Now," said our dis- 
tinguished guest, who confessed that he was 
badly disgruntled himself, " this is my apology 
for the 'smile,' and a discovery of the 'place 
where the lauorh comes in.' " 

o 

I 

Durinor this same conversation we heard the 
authentic story of an old captain and soldier 
who was visiting Japan, and who had been one 
of the few survivors of the "Irish Brigade.' ' 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 113 

He followed Cardigan at Balaklava, and had 
lost a leg in that awful charge — " into the jaws 
of death, into the mouth of hell," as Tennyson 
recites in his immortal battle-hymn. He had 
many times predicted that henceforth the word 
"fear" was not in his dictionary. The earth- 
quake came in his rear and on both flanks, 
with a demonstration of death and power to 
which Balaklava was a reed in a cyclone. 
Up he sprang and out he rushed, with a crutch 
and one leg, surpassing the record of any 
sprinter in Ireland. "What are you running 
for, Captain ? " said his friend, meeting him in 
the height of the convulsion. " Running ! I am 
running, sir, because I can't fly! " 

These incidents do not show the want of 
physical courage on the part of the soldier, nor 
a discount of the faith of the Christian. They 
are related only in illustration of the tempo- 
rarily demoralizing effects of these terrible 



114 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

agencies alike on Jew and Gentile and the 
Christian disciple. 

Once during the last year of our mission, the 
British and American Legations, and some of 
the Cabinet of His Majesty, and thousands of 
other visitors, were spending the mid-summer 
on the heights of Nikko, the far-famed Baden- 
Baden of the Japanese and of the Imperial 
court. Here are the burying-places of the 
early Emperors and Shoguns, commemorated 
by temples splendid for magnificence and archi- 
tectural beauty, unsurpassed by any churches 
or cathedrals, St. Paul's or St. Peter's, or any 
other on the globe. We do not mean to com- 
pare them with the last-named churches in size, 
but in harmony of design and proportion. 

On this mountain the writer, his family, and 
Legation, and a number of others, in the sum- 
mer of 1888, early in the morning were stand- 
ing on the summit of the high peak, looking to 



QC 




MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 115 

the far mountain ranges and to Fuji San, and 
at the dashing river, like a stream of mol- 
ten silver flowing at our feet, when an emi- 
nent Japanese statesman, who spoke English 
fluently, said, pointing to a mountain north of 
us, " That mountain you see about forty miles 
from this spot was eleven hundred years ago 
an active volcano ! Its name is ' Bon Di San.' 
For all these centuries since then it has been 
silent. It is about 6,000 feet high." While he 
was talking to us we noticed that the sea-birds 
and the land-birds and the storks (their national 
bird, as the American eagle to us) were flying 
over our heads, screaming, it seemed, as if in 
fear and terror. We noticed that the few dogs 
with us were on their haunches, howling mourn- 
fully. We asked our Japanese servant, " What 
does all this mean?" His quiet and careless 
reply in broken or " pigeon" English was, 
" Earthquake coming ! The bird and the 



116 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

dog, he know first before ' Mellican man ' or 
Japanese man, when earthquake is acoming.' , 
Before we had time to reply to what we sup- 
posed was the craze of a crank, the trembling 
mountains and the swaying summits of other 
peaks around us and the sickening nausea 
produced by the drunken-motions, so to speak, 
of the mountains, told the story too truly that 
the "Jap" knew what was coming! The 
theory is that the finer and more delicate and 
sensitive nerves of the beast and bird feel the 
first and faint vibrations of the earth and the 
air and sea lone before the duller nerves of 
man. In the midst of this trembling we looked 
to the mountain, which we had been told was 
once an active volcano. It had been blown 
up from its base into the heavens, scattering 
its ashes and debris far inland and on the sea, 
and falling back its rocks and earth had covered 
forever from the eyes of man a village at its 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 117 

base — a summer resort for bathing. It was lit- 
erally Herculaneum and Pompeii reinacted; that 
fallen debris of the mountain was the monument 
and mausoleum of the dead, to rescue whose 
remains no pick or spade or mortal agency was 
ever invoked, nor will be till the judgment-day. 
These incidents may not be attractive to our 
countrymen as they were not to us, yet as we 
recall them now, after nearly a decade, we 
shudder with mortal dread at the memory of 
their mystic and awful power, coming " like a 
thief in the night," to awaken only to destroy. 
Earthquakes and Asiatic cholera are the only 
dark spots on the otherwise fair picture of physi- 
cal Japan. They, however, do not frighten, 
much less appall, the Japanese. His supreme 
belief in eternal rest in " Nirvana " after death 
in the great hereafter, is the faith that supports 
him in peace or war, in life or death, hopeful 
and happy and absolutely without fear in the 
dissolution of life. 



CHAPTER XII. 



POLITICAL AND. EDUCATIONAL EVOLUTIONS OF 
JAPAN. 



mmim 



OR the more useful and practical 
purposes of these recitals, it is 

~^i&$gk not necessary that the author 
should lead the reader backward through the 
traditions and mystic legends of thousands of 
years. It is proper, however, as a land-mark 
from which to reckon in these surveys of a 
remarkable history, to be reminded that Japan 
claims that its real national existence began 
five hundred and eighty-five years before the 
birth of Christ. 

Jimu Teno was the founder of the dynasty, 
and the present Mikado (1898) is the one hun- 
dred and twenty-first successor, without a miss- 

[118] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 119 

ing link in the long chain of that imperial 
house. This dynasty traces through the ages 
past its birth-day back to the Sun Goddess 
Amaterasu. According to the State religion 
the present dynasty sprang from the Gods. 
The title of "Teno" has been borne by every 
Mikado for over two thousand years. Accord- 
ing to their pagan calculations, the Japanese 
dynasty goes back ten thousand years before 
Jimu Teno, when, quoting the words of the 
present Emperor on his ascending the throne, 
" When our divine ancestors laid the foundation 
of the earth." Of course all this is part of 
the tradition of a false pagan mythology. 

In 1 192, the eighty-second Mikado invested 
Yoritomo at Kamakura with the chief military 
power, the Mikado still reigning as the spiritual 
ruler. The Government henceforth became a 
dual power, and the Shoguns title was heredi- 
tary, and the Feudal system was organized by 



120 THE UNITED STATES IJST THE FAR EAST. 

royal decree. For many centuries, and until 
after the first American treaty with Japan in 
1854, the Shogun (or Tycoon) was a real active 
ruler of Japan. He organized the country 
into Fus and Kens, or States, and over each 
placed Dimaios or princess, who were feudal 
lords, and with their retainers, the "Samrai," 
constituted the armed military reserve of the 
Empire. The Mikado was never seen save by 
his royal household, but was the spiritual, in- 
fallible Emperor, whose commands the Tycoons 
and Dimaios were compelled to obey under 
penalty of death. The power of life and death 
was absolutely in his hands. There was then 
no written code, civil or criminal. It was the 
"lex non scripta " of the Shoguns or the Diamios 
that controlled in the judicial tribunals, where 
''precedents" did not govern and were never 
invoked, and from whose decisions there was 
no appeal. And yet down through all these 




Samurai. The Soldier of Japan in days of the Shoguns. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 121 

dark ages there was no domestic treason or 
revolts against the crown, and there was abso- 
lute devotion to the dynasty, and the millions 
of subjects loved peace and abhorred war, save 
in defense of Japan. Such was their record far 
in advance of any other Asiatic Power up to 
the date of the first American treaty. But it 
may be further said to the credit of this people, 
that, though in the midst of superstitions in 
state and paganism in church, they never 
waged unjust war for conquest against neigh- 
boring nations. Thus, centuries ago, in her 
first great conflict with China, on account of 
Formosa and Corea, Japan fought in defense 
of violated treaties, and while triumphant, 
was generous and humane to the vanquished, 
absolutely giving autonomy to Corea instead 
of chaining her as a captive to her chariot 
wheels. 

The new era of Japan began in the year of 

11 



122 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

our Lord, 1854. Like the fabled Delos rising 
from the waves of the sea, Japan commenced to 
rise from that good hour to a higher and yet 
higher plane, and to a loftier and nobler emi- 
nence of national life. For over three hundred 
years she had been the hermit of Asiatic nations. 
With a toleration of spirit and good neighborli- 
ness indeed, for over three centuries, antedating 
the first American treaty of amity and commerce, 
she had opened her ports, as well as the inte- 
rior from the mountains to the sea, to people 
from all foreign lands, and bade them welcome, 
as if " native and to the manner born." 

The Dutch came and with their ships reaped 
a rich commercial harvest of trade, and at 
Nagasaki built the first factories and mills. 
From the other nations of Europe, from France 
and Spain and Russia and Italy came, likewise, 
traders, and later came the religious order of 
the Jesuits. The latter built splendid cathe- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 123 

drals and temples, and thousands of the natives 
acknowledged Christ, and turned away from 
the pagan worship of Buddha, and of the faith 
of their fathers. 

For all this propogandism there was absolute 
toleration by the Japanese State. The priest- 
hood, the bishops and archbishops of the 
Jesuit arm of the " Mother Church" of Rome, 
so the native historians of Japan inform us, 
after centuries of protection, began to interfere 
with the temporal and political power of the 
Empire, suggesting new concessions and de- 
manding a representative voice in the State, as 
well as "bulls" against the national church of 
Japan. To all this the Emperor and the 
princess and priesthood of Buddha at first only 
kindly protested. These protests were una- 
vailing and added fuel to the flames of fanati- 
cism which there, as in former ages, stained the 
world's history with bloody war. Falsely this 



124 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

has been done in the name of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, whose divine mission on earth was her- 
alded by angels with the immortal song of 
" Peace on earth and good will to men." 

The terrible illustration "that extremes 
meet" was at hand when over 100,000 con- 
verts to Jesuitism, native and foreign born, 
were tortured to death. The attempted political 
propogandism of the Jesuit missionaries was 
met by the fagot and the sword. This fearful 
religious crusade against Christianity became 
so intense that in 1636, the Emperor issued 
his decree that even the images of the Saviour 
and of the Cross, whether in coin or paintings 
of cathedrals, should be periodically desecrated 
and trampled under pagan foot. Therefore 
for three centuries succeeding, the gates of 
this old Empire were closed — grimly and se- 
curely closed — against the people of all other 
lands under the sun. Their "bulls" against 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 125 

Christianity continued in force even until the 
year 1854, when the great American Commo- 
dore and diplomat, persuaded Japan, with war 
ships in port, to open those gates of exclusion 
to all Christian nations. This treaty and those 
similar to it, negotiated by England, France, 
Germany, Russia, and Portugal, following the 
leadership of the United States in solemn form, 
and by mutual stipulations, opened the ports 
of Kanagawa (now Yokohama), Hakodoti, and 
Shimoda to foreign commerce. In 1858, the 
additional ports of Hiogo, Kobe, Osaca, and 
Neigata were opened also to foreign commerce. 
* These treaties we cannot amplify in detail, 
we shall mention them for the purpose of 
marking distinctly the wonderful changes since 
that day in the political and onward march of 
Japan. These treaties all provided for what 
diplomats and publicists term "extra-territori- 
ality." That is to say : 



126 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

i st. Japan agreed to open certain of her sea 
ports to the Powers designated in the treaties 
for commercial intercourse. 

2d. That as to this trade, there should be no 
invidious discriminations in favor of or against 
any one nation over another. In other words, 
the " favored nation clause " was inserted in all 
of these treaties. 

3d. Within a designated area, or "conces- 
sion" including these treaty ports, foreigners 
might buy and sell and ship and receive the 
Japanese products of the field or farm or fac- 
tory, on the same free conditions as the natives 
could. Under these provisions, the foreign 
subject or citizen could only pass beyond the 
limits of the treaty concession into the interior 
by a passport of the Japanese Government, 
countersigned by the Minister of the Treaty 
Power. But he could not trade, buy or sell 
while in said interior, nor reside permanently 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 127 

for any purpose whatever. One rare exception 
was made in the treaties of 1858, that missiona- 
ries of any religion were not to be prohibited 
from preaching to the natives. 

4th. On the other hand, the Treaty Powers 
exacted from Japan that their citizens or sub- 
jects while in Japanese territory, for any al- 
leged violations of their civil or criminal law, 
where the Emperor or any of his subjects was 
a party, whether complaining or defending, 
could be tried only before the Consul of the 
Treaty Power of which the foreign party was a 
subject, with appeal to his Minister as a court 
of last resort. To illustrate to the unprofes- 
sional reader : If an American citizen in Japan, 
for instance, should be charged with burglary 
or robbery or murder, or any other crime, he 
could be arrested on oath of Japanese subjects 
before a Japanese court, but his trial could be 
held only before an American Consular court, 



128 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

and would be conducted solely under the laws 
and penalties of the United States. A prince or 
a lord of Japan and of the royal family might be 
murdered or robbed by an American or British 
subject, yet no Japanese court or tribunal 
under these treaties dare assume jurisdiction 
to try the case. And so likewise with civil 
causes, involving often in the tea and silk 
trade, hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
admiralty and otherwise. To all their civil 
complaints, when the Japanese sues or defends, 
their courts were compelled to be silent. We 
amplify these provisions of the treaties because 
out of them grow the memorable contentions 
of succeeding years, involving the question of 
Japan's capacity for self-government, and the 
revision of the treaties. 

5th. These treaties provided for the absolute 
ex parte imposition and regulation of all tariffs 
on exports from treaty nations to Japan by the 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 129 

said foreign Powers. Without taxing our 
readers with the tedious lists and rates of duty 
on such exports, which are found in the tariff 
tables, these unjust and invidious iron-clad pro- 
visions were so rivetted in these treaties that, 
from the date of their ratification in 1854 and 
1858, Japan was prohibited from charging at 
her own custom-houses more than five per 
cent, advalorem on any exports into Japan 
from any foreign nation, or its equivalent in 
"specific duties," calculated on the same basis 
or standard of valuation. There was no agree-' 
ment or restriction that the Treaty Powers 
should not impose on Japanese exports any 
higher duties than Japan imposed on the 
foreign imports. Thus while the boasted 
Christian Powers claimed that their denial to 
Japan of criminal jurisdiction to try foreign 
violators of her laws was because Japan was a 
pagan and heathen nation, they forgot the 



130 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAB EAST. 

Christians' "Golden Rule," to "do unto others 
as ye would that they should do unto you"; 
that, in the forum of justice or in the market- 
place, there should be no higher exaction of 
the pagan than of the Christian. 

The Christian Power that with Shylock de- 
mands his money or blood, follows the cold 
letter of the "Bond," but crucifies the divine 
spirit of the Master. And such was the forced 
tariff impositions on Japan. 

It is the role of the highwayman, who, with 
the knife at your throat, demands "your money 
or your life." There was at the time of these 
treaty negotiations some excuse for withhold- 
ing from non-Christian Powers the right to sit 
in judgment on the persons and property, the 
liberty and lives of the subjects of said Chris- 
tian Powers. At that darker age of their 
national life there were no written constitutions 
and laws, and the one-man power often de- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 131 

stroyed liberty and life, without what civilized 
nations called "due process of law." 

But the argument does not and cannot apply 
to commerce, or the barter and trade of the 
world's market-places in any age. The pagan 
and the infidel, by natural or revealed religion, 
has the same heaven-born right to receive 
equal and exact justice as the Christian from 
enlightened lands. Honesty among nations is 
not to be measured by the orthodox or hetero- 
dox standards of cults and creeds. The treaties 
compelled Japan to admit all the commerce of 
treaty nations to her custom-houses, imposing 
no higher duty than five per cent, advalorem, 
while Japan's manufactured goods and wares, 
silks and distilled " saki," going to treaty ports, 
were subjected to a tariff often as high as ioo 
to 150 per centum advalorem. The "Golden 
Rule" of the Christian nations, good in theory, 
was murdered in cold blood in practice in the 
marts of trade of the Far East. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



JAPAN AWAKES FROM THE SLEEP OF AGES; ENTERS 
THE RACE FOR THE HIGHER CIVILIZATION. 




NLIKE all other non-Christian 
nations, Japan cut loose her ship 
then and there — in 1854 — from 
the moorings of old superstitions, and ventured 
on a voyage of discovery over unknown waters 
to the ports of the nations of the West. She 
sent a diplomatic embassy of thirty-five of her 
most eminent subjects, princes and lords and 
counts and field-marshals, representing the civic 
and military power of the Empire, to Europe 
and America to see for themselves, and for the 
first time, the political and industrial institutions 
and constituent elements of foreign armies and 
navies. In a word, they were ordered to brave 

[132] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 133 

the perils of the sea — not on a "junketing" 
tour, nor as "Paul Prys," with idle curiosity to 
gratify, but on a serious mission, seeking what- 
ever was good in the West in the executive, 
legislative, and judicial departments of govern- 
ments ; to study their laws, and their systems 
of education ; their internal improvements of 
the rail or of the factory, the mill or the mine ; 
of finance and the peaceful arts of agriculture ; 
in a word, to study and compare them with 
their own crude and impracticable systems 
of political government and their modes of 
so-called education, with no advance for a 
thousand years. 

The reception in 1855,- extended by the 
United States at the Capital by the President 
and the American Congress, to this friendly 
embassy of Japan, is within the memory of 
living men. 

It was a strange and unique incident in the 



134 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

world's history, that of the oldest nation, per- 
haps, of the globe, seeking and praying unto 
the West for light and guidance out of the 
night — into the sunlight of a better and brighter 
day of national life. It was the Old East, where 
the cradle of the race was rocked, extending 
her sun-browned hands of friendship in grati- 
tude to the distant and mighty West. It was 
an appropriate and chivalrous acknowledgment 
of America's generous treatment of Japan in 
the time of her trial thus to make their first 
visit of state to the American Capital. It was 
the realization of the prophetic dream of the 
poet; that "one touch of human kindness 
makes the whole world kin." Our readers 
must not be mislead into the belief that this 
old Empire was then or had been for ages bar- 
barian. She had adopted centuries before this 
time, the ancient learning of China and the 
philosophy of Confucius, a civilization sui- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 135 

generis, in which painting and sculpture — in 
marble and bronze, and the science of mathe- 
matics, and astronomy, and hydraulic engineer- 
ing — were in these far back times, voiced in 
the ideographic characters of China, or by their 
own. They were not " barbarians." Hence 
this imperial embassy took notes and copies of 
all that was good and better than existed in 
their own country, and brought back faithful 
reports of their great mission. The echoes of 
this embassy's work, have been heard for nearly 
forty years, and in their finances, postal, mili- 
tary and naval educational institutions, and 
law and statesmanship, America's impress is 
seen everywhere as clear as the day. 



12 



CHAPTER XIV. 



FREE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES OF 
JAPAN. 



-j/JTm\\NI^ of the earliest and noblest 
\ ^L^F I results of this memorable visit 

&^±j&£/ of her representative men to the 
West was the organization of the university 
and public school systems. The systems so 
adopted, were modelled mostly after the early 
New England public schools by the famous 
Japanese scholar and diplomat — Count Mori — 
with the added compulsory features of the 
Prussian national schools of that day. 

Into their free public schools, every child 
from the age of seven to fourteen was com- 
pelled to go. The curriculum is not selected by 
the parent or guardian, but prescribed by the 

[136J 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 137 

educational bureaus of the Empire. Having, 
of course, no teachers of her own educated in 
the learning of the West at that time, Japan 
sent to all of the Treaty Powers in quest of the 
most eminent scholars of America and Europe ; 
to the great universities of Harvard and Yale 
and Columbia of America, and to denomi- 
national Christian colleges, and to Oxford and 
Cambridge of England ; the polytechnic schools 
of France, and the famed universities of the 
German " Fatherland." These foreign scholars 
were employed at salaries often thrice the com- 
pensation received in their native lands. Thus, 
first through interpreters, and afterwards hav- 
ing acquired the native language, these learned 
3avants organized their schools of science, of 
law and medicine, and engineering, and of 
literature, political as well as national, in all 
the departments of the highest mental culture. 
In the last one-third of a century, since the 



138 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

first American treaty, Japan has built her own 
imperial universities, endowed by the Emperor, 
the equal of many of the great institutions of 
Europe or America. Their colleges of civil 
engineering have been pronounced unsur- 
passed by the most distinguished American 
engineers. General Upton of the Union Army 
of the " Civil War," himself a distinguished 
civil engineer, after the most thorough inspec- 
tion, said to his great chief, General Grant : 
"in my observations of the best schools of 
engineering of Europe and of our country, 
Japan's school of engineering compares most 
favorably with any of them." 

The canals and railways of the Empire and 
public works, requiring a knowledge of civil 
or hydraulic engineering, are now all built 
under the superintendence of native engineers, 
graduates of the national schools of their own 
country. Their " National Observatory" is 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 139 

now controlled by Japanese scholars and as- 
tronomers, and their reports are quoted as 
authority around the world. Their medical 
schools in their early organization, had the 
guiding hand of the most learned men of medi- 
cal science in all departments for thirty years. 
And so their law schools, a part of the National 
University, are a marvel and a surprise to the 
visitors and ministers of all civilized nations, 
who witness the progress of " Young Japan," 
in the learning- of the laws and the elements of 
enlightened political government. 

The writer, in 1888, at the request of the 
Minister of Justice (the same as our Attorney- 
General), was invited to attend the Imperial 
University Law Department, where over one 
thousand bright young men were studying 
what they denominated " Anglo-American 
Law " preparatory to entering the practice of 
law in their own courts. Most of the students 



140 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

could speak English and could read in the 
Japanese tongue the translations of the stand- 
ard works of the great American and English 
jurists and their decisions. In that Oriental 
law school, we heard the opinions of Mansfield 
and John Marshall, the greatest of English and 
American jurists, read and discussed learnedly 
in faultless English. Many of their most 
learned lawyers and judges had been educated 
in the law schools of the United States, and of 
England and the continent, and many of their 
scholarly men during the last third of this cen- 
tury, have been educated at the best schools of 
science and of medicine and engineering, and 
of art of America and Europe. 

So solid, and yet so rapid, had beer the 
advance of Japan along all these lines, that her 
history since Commodore Perry's day and since 
the restoration of the Mikado, sounds like the 
stories of old romance. With all this wonder- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 141 

ful development and intellectual and national 
growth that challenged competition with the 
Treaty Powers, the brightest coloring to this 
thrilling race to the front has been the exercise 
of a catholic spirit of generosity and unselfish 
toleration in Church and State to her own and 
to the subjects of all friendly foreign lands. 

Their patriotism is without a parallel in the 
history of nations. When the Shogun was 
dethroned, after a fierce and bloody conflict, 
the Imperial Government granted full pardon 
to the many thousands of its rebellious sub- 
jects, including alike the prince and the coolie, 
and many of them, as the writer can testify, 
hold at this hour some of the highest positions 
of trust and honor in the Empire. 

In 1869, all the princes or Diamos volun- 
tarily yielded up their feudal rights to the 
Emperor. In making this patriotic sacrifice, 
these noblemen declared "that their single 



142 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

object was to raise the national standing by 
perpetuating the centralization of power in the 
Imperial Government, and thereby enabling 
the Empire to take its place side by side with 
the other civilized nations of the world ! " No 
longer hermit, the Emperor has broken through 
the old superstitions of the past that hedged 
him around as a god, and moves among his 
devoted and loyal subjects with the heart of a 
man, while wearing the crown of a king. 

With ambassadors at the courts of £very 
civilized nation, and consulates to guard the 
friendly commerce which is exchanged with 
them all around the globe ; with merchant 
marine by steam and sail on every sea and 
with mighty modern battle-ships, with a grow- 
ing commercial wealth ; with light-houses to 
warn of dangerous coasts ; with telegraphs on 
land and cables under the ocean ; with an army 
and navy ranking alongside those of the great 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 143 

military powers, cherishing the good-will of all 
nations, Japan recognizes by deed rather than 
by word, that "peace hath her victories no less 
renown'd than war." 

Out of all this progress has grown to be 
recognized by imperial power the nobler man- 
hood of man, without reference to class or 
caste. The farmer or mechanic, or shepherd 
among his flocks, may aspire to win the highest 
prizes of fame and power and usefulness in the 
Empire by patriotism and personal worth. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE WOMANHOOD OF JAPAN. 




UT the capstone of the temple was 
the recognition of the equality 
and the subsequent elevation of 
the womanhood of Japan to the level of man- 
hood in education and in the social life. 

For ages, woman in Japan occupied a com- 
paratively inferior position in the social scale. 
She was never, as among the savage Indians of 
the West, required to perform the drudgery of 
menial labor in the home, in the chase or in 
the field. But she could aspire to no higher 
development than motherhood and the cradle 
and the home. Her culture of the old-time, 
and until the American treaty, consisted in 
thrumming the " samisen " and guitar to the 

[144] 




A Famous ' ' Belle ' ' of Japan. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 145 

weird notes of sad and mediaeval music, or in 
spinning and weaving the native silks, or 
beautifying them with the richest embroidery 
and tapestry, and " needle-painting " of birds 
and flowers, with blended colors, famous around 
the globe. 

But her enforced sphere was her humble 
bamboo home, and above the spinning and 
the weaving and the delicate and tasteful 
embroidery of her gentle hands, and the music, 
and her duties of motherhood, and the love of 
her children, and her worship of her liege lord 
and master — above these limits her aspirations 
could not rise. 

Yet notwithstanding her inferior position 
there was a chivalrous devotion of the father 
and husband to his wife, and a love for their 
children equal to and surpassing, if that were 
possible, the domestic attachments of the home- 
life of our Christian lands of the West 



146 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

Her educational privileges in the public 
schools are now on the same plane with those 
of her brothers, and higher colleges, especially 
established for the mental training and educa- 
tion of the daughters of the Empire, are now 
wide open to her. The schools and colleges 
of all the great Christian denominations, in 
charge of educated and devoted Christian mis- 
sionaries, have also been for many years 
receiving and teaching the daughters of Japan, 
alike of the nobles and of the peasants. In the 
music of the West and in modern art, she, like 
her brother, has advanced far to the front, 
almost abreast with her " pale-faced sisters" 
of the Occident. 

Japanese women have, like their brothers, in 
the search for a higher intellectual life, for a 
third of a century drunk freely of the fountains 
of knowledge of Western lands, for ages denied 
to their mothers. Indeed, on this long night of 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 147 

her past the sun of civilization has arisen and 
advanced far toward the noon of a better day 
for Japan. 

Their Ambassadors to Europe and America 
at the great Republican or Imperial Courts are 
often accompanied by their cultured wives. 
The writer was associated for years with a dis- 
tinguished American citizen, then, from 1885 to 
1890, one of the secretaries of his own Lega- 
tion, and afterwards United States Minister to 
Japan (the Honorable Edwin Dunn, of Ohio), 
whose beautiful and cultivated wife was a 
daughter of one of the noble houses of the 
Empire. 

Only one Japanese woman bears an English 
title. She is Lady Arnold, wife of Sir Edwin 
Arnold, author of "The Light of Asia." Lady 
Arnold is a typical Japanese beauty. It is dif- 
ficult to reproduce her charm by western pho- 
tography or art. Her family name is Kurotawa 



148 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Tama, which, being translated, means " jewel 
of the dark river." She was born at Sendal, 
Japan, on "November 21, 1869. Her family is 
a noble and ancient one, even in a land where 
families measure their antiquity by a thousand 
years and more. 

Sir Edwin Arnold, who is a knight com- 
mander of the Order of the Indian Empire, 
passed the greater part of his life in the civil 
service in India. After his official career was 
completed he spent some years in visiting the 
less known countries of the East. He tarried 
in Japan, which had not then acquired its great 
popularity as a happy hunting-ground for trav- 
elers, or its political importance, due to the 
result of the war with China. Sir Edwin was 
largely responsible for familiarizing the people 
of England and America with "The Land of 
Rising Sun." To him in a great measure we 
owe Japanese furniture and Japanese vocations. 



t 

3 



5 




13 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 149 

He wrote the most sympathetic and enthusiastic 
descriptions of Japanese beauty that have ever 
appeared in English. No woman, he said, sur- 
passed the Japanese for loveliness, gentleness, 
and all truly feminine qualities. Then it was 
announced that he intended to wed a Japanese 
maiden. His family protested. It was reported 
for a time that the marriage was off, but Sir 
Edwin stood firm, and wedded his Japanese 
beauty. Several of the most beautiful short 
poems written by Sir Edwin are descriptive of 
the sweet, delicate charms of his girlish bride, 
for she appears to be but a delicate flower. He 
is most devotedly attached to the wife in whom 
he has found an ideal. The Arnold residence 
is rich in oriental decorations and furniture, but 
the more substantial household gods of the 
Occident are not overlooked. 

Lady Arnold, in the privacy of her house- 
hold, wears the kimona and the other graceful 



150 THE UNITED STATES IN THE EAR EAST. 

articles of attire of her native land. On her 
public appearances in society and when pre- 
siding in her own drawing-room, she wears 
the conventional costumes of London. Lady 
Arnold is gaining great social popularity in 
England. , 

Many years ago during Count Mori's career 
as Japanese Minister and Consul General to 
the United States, a Japanese maiden of noble 
family, then in her early teens, with others from 
the "Far East," was placed at the famous 
American college of Vassar on the Hudson, to 
be educated. She remained there for years, 
and won the highest honors in a large class of 
American girls. During that long stay, she 
nearly forgot her native tongue, learned to love 
our country, and felt as if " native and to the 
manner born." Returning to her native land, 
she was the reigning belle and the most beau, 
tiful woman of Japan. Her heart and hand 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 151 

were sought by the bravest and noblest in 
station and blood of the Empire. She became 
the wife of General Count Oyama, then the 
Minister for War, who had won fame in the 
great rebellion of Saigo and Satsuma. This 
noble countess dispensed in their splendid 
palace, magnificent and refined hospitality. 
The writer and his wife, and Lady, Plunkett, 
herself American born, have many a time en- 
joyed the hospitalities of this cultured woman. 
In the late war with China, her husband, still the 
War Minister, became a field marshal, and was 
the great leader with General Yamagata and 
others. Combining the strategy and the dash 
alike of Sheridan and "Stonewall" Jackson, 
he aided in bringing a nation of 500,000,000 
people to the ashes of defeat. Countess 
Oyama was the second vice-president of the 
"Red Cross" Society (her Majesty, the Em- 
press of Japan, being the first president). 



152 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

These are types only of what this wonderful 
development, this glorious progress of the in- 
dividual and national life has done and is 
doing for Japan's womanhood. 

Political Advancement. 

From the " Old Japan " of the ages past the 
shackles of political and largely of religious 
superstitions have been stricken to the earth, 
and the press has become as free as in France 
or Germany or Russia, and has grown to be a 
political factor in this progress of the "New 
Japan." Codes and courts on Western models, 
and a constitutional form of government with 
parliamentary representations, have followed in 
the wake without sudden or violent shocks in 
the transition. 

The author's official life -in Japan was, 
fortunately, co-temporary with the organization 
of Japan's modern judicial and parliamentary 




Typical Japanese Beauty of the Higher Classes. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 153 

systems, civil and criminal, and the discussions 
relating to the proposed changes of her political 
institutions. 

The first most important event of that era 
was the creation of a national " deliberative 
body" without direct representation, whose 
object was to ascertain the wishes of the people 
for definite action by the Imperial Counsel of 
State. In 1875, tne Emperor, from his throne, 
uttered the following remarkable proclamation : 

" We have ordered the assembling of the repre- 
sentatives from the various provinces of the Empire, 
to ascertain and best consult the public interests, 
and to determine the wisest administration. We 
hope by these means to secure the happiness of 
our subjects and of ourself. And, while they must 
necessarily abandon many of their former customs, 
yet they must not on the other hand yield too 
impulsively to a rash desire to reform." 

Six years later, in 1881, followed, in fullness 
of time and promise, the still more important 
event in the reign of the present Emperor, 



154 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

when he issued the decree for the establish- 
ment of a Constitutional Government. It was in 
these words : 

Imperial Decree. 

" We, sitting on the throne which has been 
occupied by our dynasty for over 2,500 years, and 
now exercising in our own name and right the 
authority and power transmitted to us by our 
ancestors, have long had it in view to establish a 
constitutional form of government, to the end that 
our successors on the throne may be provided with 
a rule for their guidance. * " * We, therefore, 
hereby declare that in the twenty-third year of 
Meiji (1890) we will establish a parliament in 
order to carry into effect the determination we have 
announced ; and we charge our faithful subjects 
bearing our commissions to make in the meantime 
all necessary preparations to that end." 

The great event heretofore briefly outlined, 
naturally invoked autonomy and independent 
self-government. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE REVISION OF THE TREATIES PART OF HERE- 
TOFORE UNPUBLISHED HISTORY. 




[§J^\\N th e first day of May, 1886, the 
delegates from all the Treaty 
Powers met at the Ministry for 
Foreign Affairs at Tokio, the capital of Japan, 
by virtue of the following official protocol : 

" The Government of Japan and the Governments 
of Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, 
Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, 
Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the 
Swiss Confederation, and the United States of 
America, respectively, recognizing the desirability 
of arriving at a common understanding with the 
object of completing the work of the revision of 
the treaties begun in the Preliminary Conference of 
1882, have appointed plenipotentiaries to represent 
them at a new Conference convoked by the Japanese 
Government for this purpose." 

[155J 



156 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

To this protocol was signed the names of all 
the delegates embraced therein. His Excel- 
lency Count Inouye, the Japanese Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, by unanimous approval of all 
the Treaty Powers, was made the President of 
the Conference. This eminent statesman, who 
had presided with signal ability over the pre- 
liminary Conference of 1882, and the Premier, 
then Count (now Marquis) Ito, have been 
called respectively the Bismarck and the 
Gladstone of Japan. That last Conference 
was a memorable assemblage, worthy of 
the great Powers that it represented. The 
personnel of that picture would have been all 
the great nations of the earth, empanelled 
and sitting as a jury, with Japan pleading her 
own cause, asking not for mercy but for jus- 
tice, even-handed justice, at the judgment-seat 
of the younger Powers. 

The author, as heretofore recited, repre- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 157 

sented his government in that Conference. 
In the cause of truth concerning that Con- 
ference which held its sessions for nearly three 
years, and whose transactions are largely a 
" sealed book" to the American and European 
public, we shall freely appeal to an impartial 
record now only to be found in the archives of 
Japan and of the Treaty Powers, and in the 
possession of the individual delegates who sat 
in that International Conference. The United 
States has much to gain and nothing to lose by 
that record. 

The proceedings were in the French and 
English languages — Japan, Great Britian, the 
United States, Austria, the Netherlands, and 
Portugal, electing the English ; and France 
and Germany and Belgium, Russia, Spain, and 
Switzerland, electing the French language. 

For centuries in European courts, as all the 
world knows, the French has been recognized 



158 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

as the " court language." The court language 
now follows the flag under whose folds the 
commerce of the world mostly floats and is 
protected. England and the United States, 
the great English-speaking peoples, command 
not only with Japan and the Orient, but else- 
where a major part of the world's export and 
import trade. 

Henceforth, therefore, the English language 
will be the official language of the courts, as it 
is now of the world's exchanges. The Presi- 
dent (Count Inouye) Foreign Minister, opened 
the Conference with the following address : 

" The Conference which has assembled to-day, 
has for its object the revision of the existing trea- 
ties, and the conclusion of a Convention which 
shall for many years regulate the intercourse be- 
tween Japan and the Western Powers. 

"The Conference of 1882, which was called for 
the purpose of establishing the basis for the revision 
of the treaties, was a success in so far as it enabled the 
Imperial Government to point out, clearly, various 




i£» > 



t 



r 








Count Inouye, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 159 

desirable reforms — notably, the reform of jurisdic- 
tion, and to declare its liberal policy in regard 
to the opening of the whole country to foreign trade 
and intercourse. The proposition then submitted 
by the Imperial Government in this respect, did 
not meet with the full concurrence of the Treaty 
Powers; but the discussion on commercial matters 
led to a satisfactory result. A counter proposition 
of a tariff prepared by the foreign delegates, has 
been accepted by the Imperial Government, and the 
questions of tonnage-dues and the charter of for- 
eign vessels have been agreed upon ' en principe? 

"As you are all aware, the object which this first 
Conference had in view — namely, the formation of 
a basis for the revision of the treaties, was attained 
only after prolonged negotiations between our re- 
spective governments. The various points under 
consideration were embodied in the Memorandum 
of August, 1884, which I am happy to say has 
been accepted by all the governments represented 
at this Conference, either as a basis, or at least as a 
1 point d'appui.' 

"In preparing, therefore, the drafts of the propo- 
sitions, which I shall have the honor to submit to 
you, I have been guided by this Memorandum, and 
you will find that I have been able in nearly every 
point to adhere to the spirit by which it was dic- 
tated. 
14 



160 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

"I regret that so much time has been taken up in 
the preparation of these documents, but I am happy 
to think that this time has not been spent in vain, 
for the study of the complicated judicial questions 
involved has produced corresponding reforms in 
Japanese legislation. I assure you, gentlemen, that 
the Imperial Government is fully aware of the re- 
sponsibilities which will be incurred by it if the 
modifications proposed in the system of jurisdic- 
tion over foreigners in this Empire are carried out. 

"I now beg leave to submit to you printed copies 
of the drafts which the Japanese Government has 
prepared, and which I recommend to your earnest 
and careful consideration. 

"The interest which we all, in common, have in the 
development of intimate relations and a prosperous 
commerce between this Empire and Western nations 
will, I permit myself to believe, be a guarantee 
that the great difficulties which naturally present 
themselves in dealing with the question before us 
may be overcome, having regard more especially to 
the equitable and conciliatory spirit by which we 
are animated. 

"I trust you will not lose sight of the fact that you, 
as the representatives of Western civilization, are 
called upon to pronounce judgment upon the pro- 
gress of this country, and that your decision will 
demonstrate to the world whether or not the policy 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 161 

which this government and nation have been pur- 
suing since the time of the restoration, has suc- 
ceeded in producing a feeling of confidence and 
sympathetic approbation among the nations, which 
you represent, such as to justify the adoption of a 
system different from that which has hitherto pre- 
vailed. 

"Gentlemen, I bid you a most hearty welcome, 
and echoing the sentiment of my august sovereign, 
I permit myself to entertain the confident hope that 
the Conference so auspiciously commenced, will be 
productive of a result beneficial alike to the in- 
terests of the Treaty Powers and of the nation I 
have the honor to represent." 

All the Treaty Powers were represented 
in that Conference. England, Germany, and 
Japan had two delegates each. The United 
States, France, Russia, Italy, Austria, Spain, 
the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, Den- 
mark, Belgium, and Switzerland, were severally 
represented by their accredited Ministers, with 
plenipotentiary powers. 

As the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Japan 



162 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

had announced, this Conference had been in- 
voked to consider the revision of all the 
various treaties which had been negotiated 
between that country and Foreign Powers 
since 1854. There had been a Preliminary 
Conference in 1882, which, as stated by the 
President of the Conference of 1886 and 1887, 
had been successful so far as it enabled the 
Imperial Government to point out clearly 
desirable reforms, notably of jurisdiction, and 
to declare its liberal policy in regard to the 
opening of the whole country (of Japan) to 
foreign trade and intercourse. The proposi- 
tion then submitted as a finality in that respect 
failed to receive the concurrence of all the 
Treaty Powers. 

The discussion of 1882, on commercial mat- 
ters, did lead, however, to a satisfactory result 
at the time, and a " counter proposition " of a 
tariff prepared by the foreign delegates was 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 163 

accepted by Japan. That counter proposition 
of a revised tariff could not be made final and 
effective in a convention or treaty until a similar 
unanimous agreement had been reached on the 
matter of jurisdiction by Japan over foreign 
citizens or subjects and the consequent opening 
of the entire Empire to foreigners for residence 
and trade. This revision remained in statu quo 
until 1884, when Japan embodied in a now 
historic Memorandum all the points considered 
as fait accompli in 1882, and, as a basis for the 
subsequent adoption of 1886, those which in 
1882, had lacked concurrent adoption. 

That Memorandum was accepted by all the 
governments now represented in this Con- 
ference. (For convenient reference and more 
intelligent understanding of these most impor- 
tant questions, the author refers the reader to 
the various protocols and memoranda relating 
to tariff and jurisdictional regulations attached 
to this volume.) 



164 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

The author promises his readers to relieve 
them of the details of the discussions and pro- 
ceedings of the Conference, holding sessions 
for over three years, and reported literally 
(then under the seal of " executive sessions") 
as they occurred, in volumes larger than the 
Congressional Registers at Washington. The 
author fully recognizes the dignity and impor- 
tance of a body of representatives of all the 
civilized nations, and the first of that character 
ever convened for such a purpose by mutual 
consent in the world's history Our main 
object, however, while meting impartial justice 
to all, is to give to our own countrymen the 
part which the United States played on that 
diplomatic stage, where every other Power was 
watching its own chances with friendly jealousy 
to win an equal, if not the "lion's share" of 
the rapidly-growing trade of Japan and of the 
Orient. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 165 

The early discussion of this Conference was : 
1st. On the revision of the tariffs ; and 
2d. The matter of Japan's civil and criminal 
jurisdiction over the persons and property of 
foreign subjects or citizens. 

We have already briefly adverted to the fact - 
that the earliest as well as the subsequent 
treaties with Japan reserved the iron-clad pre- 
rogative to the Treaty Powers of determining 
for Japan what tariffs or import duties she 
should be allowed to impose on the commerce 
of foreign nations ; and we have also outlined 
the substance of the same treaties, positively 
forbidding any judicial tribunals of Japan from 
assuming any jurisdiction whatever in civil or 
criminal matters in contentions arising between 
the Government of Japan or her subjects and 
a foreign subject in civil or criminal suit, and 
relegating all such trials to the Consular Court 
of the Treaty Powers exclusively. 



166 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

This brief recital is a summary of the sub- 
stance of the old Convention, to revise which, 
both in jurisdiction and tariff taxation, was the 
sole object of the Conference of 1882 and of 
1885. When in May, 1886, this body con- 
vened, the subjects first discussed were the 
project of the Revised Tariff of 1882, the Memo- 
randum of 1884, and the Revised Convention 
of 1886, prepared by the delegates of Japan. 
For these drafts England, by Sir Francis 
Plunkett, and Germany, by Baron Von Hol- 
leben, their respective and able Ministers 
Plenipotentiary, offered a substitute relating to 
the future jurisdictional powers of Japan, which 
was accepted by the Japanese Government as 
the substitute for all former projects. 

We have given the substance of the Tariff 
Project of 1882, which, with the Memorandum 
of 1884, constituted the text and subject-matter 
of the important and often exciting debates 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 167 

which followed. In that Conference, the new 
Tariff Revised Project authorized Japan to im- 
pose and collect a tariff ad valorem from ten to 
twenty per cent, higher than she was permitted 
to impose under the then existing treaties of 
1854 and 1858, and also recognized her sover- 
eign right to impose duties on her exports to 
foreign countries. 

The matter of jurisdiction and the opening 
of the interior of Japan to foreign trade and 
residence involved an entire and radical change 
of existing treaties. They denied and still 
deny any exercise of jurisdiction over foreign- 
ers by Japan and their residence beyond treaty 
ports and concessions. We deem it, therefore, 
necessary at this point to give a full text of that 
proposed Convention. It is as follows, as it 
appears in the official protocol, not heretofore 
published : 



168 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 



ARTICLE I. 

The Imperial Japanese Government agrees to 
open the whole Empire to foreigners within two 
years after ratification of this treaty, and to place 
them on the same footing as natives in every re- 
spect, unless the present treaty or subsequent Con- 
vention, which may hereafter be agreed upon, 
should contain anything to the contrary, * * * 
subjects shall enjoy the right to travel freely in the 
Empire, to reside there, to carry on commerce and 
industry, and to acquire and hold real and personal 
property. 

ARTICLE II. 

The Imperial Japanese Government agrees to 
organize a constitution of the law courts of the 
Empire in accordance with Western principles and 
the provisions of this Convention, and to carry into 
effect the following codification by the time named 
in Article I. 

These codes are : 

1. Criminal Law. 

2. Criminal Procedure. 

3. Civil Law. 

4. Commerce, Shipping, and the Law of 

Bills of Exchange. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 169 

5. Civil Procedure. 

6. Procedure in the questions contained 

under No. 4. 

7. Bankruptcy Laws. 

Moreover, the Police Laws and Regulations 
actually in force shall be, as far as possible, col- 
lected. 

ARTICLE III. 

The Imperial Japanese Government agrees to 
remit to the * * * Government the authorized 
text in the English language of the constitution of 
the law courts and of the codification enumerated 
under Article II., not later than six months 
previous to the term fixed in Article I., namely, 
eighteen months subsequent to the ratification of 
the treaty. In the same manner the Imperial 
Japanese Government agrees to bring to the 
knowledge of the * * ■ * Government all 
alterations intended in these laws six months 
before they come into force. 

ARTICLE IV. 

From the time named in Article I., the * * * 
Government will confinetheir Consular jurisdiction 
to the treaty limits of Tokio, Yokohama, Kobe, 
Osaca, Nagasaki, and Hakodate, and all * * * 



170 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

subjects outside are subjected to the Japanese 
jurisdiction. 

ARTICLE V. 

In respect to the civil law suits in which * * * 
subjects outside the above-named treaty limits take 
part as plaintiff or defendant, and in respect to the 
criminal offenses with which * * * subjects 
outside treaty limits may be charged, the following 
special stipulations shall come into force : 

A. * * * subjects shall have the privilege 
that their civil law suits, in which the amount 
involved, or the value of the object in dispute 
exceeds ioo yen, shall at once be brought before 
the Courts of Second Instance. 

B. The same rule shall apply in all cases 
where " :: " * subjects are charged with a 
delict or crime. 

C. In the cases under A and B the court exer- 
cising jurisdiction shall be composed, in numerical 
majority, of judges of foreign nationality. 

The institution of such a civil action, or the pre- 
liminary examination of such a criminal process, 
shall be under the direction of a judge of foreign 
nationality. 

D. The official language of these courts, besides 
Japanese, shall be the English language. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 171 

E. In case courts with juries are introduced, 
the cases where * * * subjects are prose- 
cuted shall be conducted with a jury composed of 
a majority of foreigners. 

F. The trial must be conducted in public. 

G. In every Superior Court competent interpre- 
ters are to be provided. 

H. Whenever a * * * subject is charged 
with a criminal offense, he shall be provided with 
an advocate conversant with the language of the 
court. 

/. In such cases a foreigner appointed for this 
purpose shall exercise the function of public prose- 
cutor. 

K. Care shall also be taken that every court 
shall be provided with competent advocates. 

L. The subjects of capital charges and execution 
shall be reserved for special arrangements. 

M. Special provisions for the confinement of 
foreign prisoners shall be made, and communicated 
to the * * * Government at the same time as 
the codes mentioned in Article II. 

N. There shall be an appeal to the highest 
court from all decisions given in pursuance of the 
above stipulations. 

0. In respect to the composition of the court 
(which decides upon the appeal) and as regards 
procedure, defense, public prosecution, etc., the 



172 THE UNTTED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

stipulations made for the courts of Second Instance 
shall be equally applicable. 

P. From the decisions of the highest court there 
shall be an appeal on questions of law to a special 
court composed of judges of the highest court. 
The stipulations with regard to courts of Second 
Instance and appeal shall be equally applicable to 
the special court. 

ARTICLE VI. 

The Imperial Japanese Government shall appoint 
judges and public prosecutors of foreign nationality 
to the extent that may be agreed upon. The 
Japanese Government, however, binds itself to 
make choice only of such persons as have, in their 
own country, acquired the qualifications for judge- 
ship. 

ARTICLE VII. 

Judges of foreign nationality shall be engaged 
for a fixed time, and shall be, during that time, 
irremovable, except upon the demand of a discip- 
linary court, composed entirely of judges of foreign 
nationality. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

The system of judges of foreign nationality, the 
stipulations of which are, according to Articles II., 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 173 

III., and V., to be communicated to the # * * 
Government with the capital codes mentioned 
above, shall remain in force for a period of fifteen 
years. Every previous alteration of this system is 
dependent on the consent of the * * * Govern- 
ment. 

ARTICLE IX. 

The * * * Consular jurisdiction shall still re- 
main in force for the period of three years from the 
time that this agreement enters into operation, but 
such Japanese Police and Administrative Laws as 
shall have been agreed upon shall in the meantime 
be inforced by the * * * Consular Courts. 

article x. 

The * * * Consular Court shall remain 
competent for * * * subjects in questions of 
personal status. 

ARTICLE XI. 

In case * * * subjects should desire to 
make use of the rights granted by this Convention 
even before the same enters into operation, they 
may do so provided they submit themselves to 
Japanese civil jurisdiction. 



174 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 
ARTICLE XII. 

This Convention shall remain in force for seven- 
teen years from the date of its ratification, and, 
with reference to its denunciation, shall be gov- 
erned by Article * * * of the Commercial 
Convention of this date. 

The reader is referred to the subsequent 
and final action on the foregoing draft, marked 
"Annex A" in the appendix to this volume 
under the head of " Articles of Draft, Jurisdic- 
tional Convention agreed upon by this Confer- 
ence up to the 2d of April, 1887." 

The position of the United States in this 
Treaty Conference, in obedience to the instruc- 
tions of the then President of the Republic — 
Mr. Cleveland — as well as in accordance with 
the well known and uniform convictions of all 
his predecessors, in that great office, from 
Commodore Perry's Treaty to the present, was 
no longer left in doubt after the memorable 




Ex-President Orover Cleveland, of the United States of 
America. 
15 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 175 

debates on the " Revised Tariffs " and Jurisdic-. 
tional Conventions had begun. 

The writer, then United States Minister to 
Japan, deems it an act of justice to his govern- 
ment and people, and to a true and impartial 
history of great events never before recorded, 
that he should repeat from the official steno- 
graphic reports, the remarks submitted by him 
to this Conference of all the Treaty Powers, 
and never before published. 

Mr. President and My Colleagues : 

The order of discussion, as adopted by the 
present Conference, invites our consideration first 
of the project for a revised tariff with Japan. The 
President has presented a project which he main- 
tains is identical in substance with the " counter 
project" for the " Revised Tariff," (with one excep- 
tion) unanimously proposed by the foreign dele- 
gates to the Conference of 1882, and which was 
unconditionally accepted by the Japanese Govern- 
ment at that time. This " counter project" was 
calculated and agreed to as Protocols 5, 6, 9, and 
10 of the Conference of 1882 indicate, "on the 



176 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

basis of a mean ad valorem duty of 10 or n per 
cent, on articles of importation," etc. It was rec- 
ommended to the Treaty Powers, the United States 
delegate alone dissenting, on the ground that the 
said "counter project" was unjust in demanding a 
reduction by which Japan lost millions of revenue. 
This " counter project " was then estimated to yield 
$3,300,000 (or, with charges, $3, 570,000) which 
was about a million dollars less than the original 
" Revised Tariff" proposed by the Japanese Gov- 
ernment would have yielded. As a part of the 
now familiar history of that discussion on the 
Tariff, we read that a "Joint Committee" was ap- 
pointed by the Conference of 1882 to work out the 
values of imports and the charges to be added in 
calculating the rates of duties; also to propose the 
articles for which specific duties should be fixed. 

It will be observed from the proceedings of the 
Conference of 1882, that this " counter project " for 
a Revised Tariff was to be reported to the respec- 
tive Treaty Powers whose delegates had then 
agreed to the same, with a favorable recommenda- 
tion for its ratification and approval. 

The committee of delegates was appointed with 
authority from the Conference of 1882 to call to 
their aid mercantile experts familiar with the export 
trade of Japan, to check off the dutiable values of 
such importations as were to be estimated "on a 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 177 

mean ad valorem basis" of from 10 to n per cent., 
etc. — as well as to determine the articles on which 
specific duties should be levied. Our predecessors 
clearly expressed in three languages (the English, 
French, and Japanese) the idea that this "counter 
project " was to be a schedule of tariff rates com- 
posed of ad valorem and specific duties. The 
present ad valorem duty is only 5 per cent. 

Such, Mr. President and my colleagues, is a 
plain and correct historical statement of this tariff 
question, up to the present. The committee, it is 
true, performed the work originally entrusted to 
them after the adjournment of the Conference, but 
the result of their labors is before us. The " Re- 
vised Tariff" now presented to this Conference is, 
in fact, the " counter project" of 1882, amplified on 
the lines adopted by the committee. If the "counter 
project " still has binding force, the mere change of 
this ad valorem rate into specific duties by the com- 
mittee (which is all that has been done) cannot make 
their work less binding. However the Conference 
of 1882 may be regarded by those who have spoken 
of this Conference as in some way a continuation 
of that body, it is still a fact that when the Confer- 
ence of 1882 adjourned, it did so sine die \ and, in 
legislative and parliamentary parlance, left no un- 
finished business which could be taken up by this 
Conference. An adjournment from day to day, as 



178 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

in the Congress of the United States and in 
European Parliaments, marks a continuous session, 
but the dissolution of a Parliament or the adjourn- 
ment of any legislative body sine die is the end of 
all unfinished business which may be pending. 
Yet the moral and political force, significance, and 
usefulness of their deliberations, both finished and 
unfinished, practically estimated by diplomats and 
statesmen, fortunately remain to be drawn upon, 
and to afford lights to guide intelligently, future 
deliberations on the same subject. 

The present American representative has thus 
regarded the action of the Conference of 1882. 
While not binding in any legislative or conven- 
tional sense, yet if the project for the Revised 
Tariff as now presented to this Conference by 
Japan is in substantial identity with the one agreed 
to in 1882 by both Conference and committee, and 
is per se a just and equitable proposition, then 
surely we may invoke the wisdom and ardous 
labors of our predecessors to aid us in deciding 
this question of the tariff. If the "counter project" 
for a tariff of 1882, and the committee's report 
afford a fair and liberal solution of the tariff prob- 
lem, we should be, it is respectfully submitted, not 
only willing, but even anxious to avail ourselves 
of the results of those deliberations, in rendering a 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 179 

long deferred and tardy justice to a progressive 
Empire of forty millions of people. 

We have carefully considered the Revised Tariff 
now proposed without any reference to the trade 
values of 1882 (and the three years next preceding), 
nor do we advocate it because it is in substance 
and in fact the once accepted '" counter project " of 
1882. On its own merits, we have come to the 
conclusion that it is a most reasonable and equi- 
table project. When specially considered in con- 
nection (or in contrast, if you please) with import 
duties of many powers represented here " even- 
handed justice" in the opinion of the American 
delegate earnestly and respectfully expressed, 
pleads with this Conference for its early adoption. 
We are not asked to consider the question of con- 
ceding complete tariff autonomy to Japan ; even if 
we were, the same questions would not arise as in 
the consideration of purely extra-territorial and 
judicial questions. The question before us relates 
to trade and commerce, to facts and figures, the 
history of which is written and known to all the 
exchanges and exchequors of the nations, and does 
not therefore require Western technical knowledge 
or acquaintance with Western judicial systems to 
afford security and safety to the Treaty Powers, 
their citizens or subjects. 

The one only true standard of action is to be found 



180 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

in the inquiry — Is it safe, is it just to the nations 
here represented, to allow Japan to impose the 
same duties on our exports as we impose on 
Japan's exports ? The " Golden Rule," equally 
applicable in the marts of trade and commerce, as 
to moral codes, demands a hearing for Japan, in 
foro conscic?itiae, at least, even though she is hedged 
about by conventions exacted a third of a century 
ago from a nation then young in statesmanship, 
clinging to precedent and still asleep, but which, 
we must now confess, has achieved an intelligent 
and stalwart national growth. 

There may be occasion (when the time comes) 
for considering the question by this Conference 
whether it would not be wise to withhold assent, 
for awhile, to granting complete national autonomy 
to Japan as to jurisdictional power over foreign 
subjects or citizens. The Japanese Government 
has not asked so much ; but only desires to con- 
sider a probationary jurisdictional system from 
which Japan hopes to emerge the fully recognized 
equal to all other nations. But this question of the 
tariff is one of dollars and cents, of yen and sen, of 
pounds, shillings, and pence, involving the right of 
a people, forty millions in number, whose financial 
status and credit are respected at home and abroad, 
to expect, not demand, friendly Treaty Powers to 
grant this revised tariff, which, at most, only in- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 181 

creases her revenue by the comparatively insignifi- 
cant sum of two or three millions. 

Yet it is intimated that while all this may be true, 
still the dutiable values estimated in 1882 must not 
be applied in 1886. Let us see. Suppose that the 
" counter project" of 1882 had gone into effect (as 
all the Powers except the United States, agreed 
that it should), would not all our governments 
to-day (and for years to come) be paying these in- 
creased import duties of from 10 to 1 1 per cent., 
calculated on the mean values of the three years 
next preceding 1882 ? No one can controvert that 
proposition. Ought we to lose sight of the fact 
that the failure at that time to make that "counter 
project " (as already amplified by the committee 
and delegates of 1882) a completed revision caused 
a loss to Japan in the past four years of seven or 
eight millions of revenue ? On the other hand, we 
ought not to forget that by the same failure the 
Treaty Powers have saved to their full exchequers 
and to their commerce, the amount which Japan 
has lost. It is not a question of who is best or 
least able to suffer this loss. If so, the question 
could be answered at once. Nor is it a question of 
physical endurance or brute force. It is simply a 
matter of justice that Japan should have this in- 
creased revenue from 1882 to 1886. The Confer- 
ence of 1882 answered that question affirmatively 



182 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

in advance. Is it not right that she should have it 
now — from 1886 onward? Is it not equally just 
that we should not forget that the value of raw ma- 
terial produced in all of our countries as well as 
the values of manufactured wares and merchandise 
are subject to yearly (almost daily) changes in the 
world's market places ? The conflicts of capital 
and labor which now and then startle all nations ; 
the fluctuations of gold and silver ; the failures of 
crops; over production; supply and demand, all 
lend their influence in raising to-day and depress- 
ing to-morrow the values of the world's products 
at home and abroad. Shall we fix one rule for 
Japan, and another for all other peoples ? The 
values of certain products which some allege have 
fallen since 1882, may, and probably will, rise in 
the next few years and then Japan would be the 
loser even though least able to bear it, while all 
the Treaty Powers would be correspondingly the 
gainers. 

The changes in the values of gold and silver at 
the present time, and during the past few years, 
have seriously affected Japan as well as other 
Eastern countries. The depression of silver has 
most seriously affected Japan, while those Powers 
whose standard is gold, and to whom the East (in 
the discount of exchange) pays enormous tribute, 
have reaped the benefit of this depreciation. In 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 183 

this connection also, let us not in fairness conceal 
the fact that the dutiable values of imports to Japan 
have been estimated in gold, while the duties have 
been paid in silver, in the same manner as if the 
two metals were exactly equal. The " trade regu- 
lations " now proposed by the Japanese Govern- 
ment are evidence of this fact. 

My government expects that no invidious dis- 
criminations will be made against the imports of 
the United States into Japan. Nor do we antici- 
pate that any such discrimination will be made by 
Japan. Our amicable relations and the mutual 
benefits we derive from our trade intercourse will 
not permit it. The United States, therefore, have 
no hesitation in recognizing the right of Japan to 
determine this question in accordance with just 
treaty stipulations. Our several treaties are separate 
and distinct, and there is no league for a protectorate 
among the Treaty Powers. This Conference meets 
simply in compliance with Japan 's request. Hence I 
have confined myself to the scheme of treaty revision 
which the Japanese Government has proposed conced- 
ing to the other powers, while I reserve to my govern- 
ment the right to treat independently with Japan, 
and the privilege of sitting in this Conference upon 
the invitation of Japan. 

My country is more largely interested in this 
tariff than any other Power. American trade with 



7 



184 THE VNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Japan amounts to more than $18,000,000 annually 
(over $14,000,000 of which we admit duty free). 
As I read the figures of 1885, we take 313,000,000 
more of Japan's exports than Great Britain, 
$9,000,000 more than France, and $15,000,000 
more than Germany, and yet our prineipal export 
to Japan, petroleum oil (amounting to a little more 
than two and one-half millions in value) will have 
to bear under the revised tariff a duty equivalent, 
in 1882, when the schedule was framed, to 15 per 
cent, ad valorem. 

In this ''revised tariff" you find the dutiable 
value of kerosene oil stated at 18 sen, and the duty 
at .027 per gallon, which is equal to 15 per cent. 
ad valorem; an increase of 5 per cent, over the 
average duties (if considered as ad valorem) on the 
products imported from other countries to Japan. 
And still this tariff is not in excess of the duty 
enforced by other nations on this and many other 
articles of import. 

All nations enforce tariffs, sometimes for " reve- 
nue only," and sometimes " for protection ; " some- 
times " prohibitory," and sometimes "retaliatory." 
In regard to this "revised tariff" proposed by 
Japan, it is almost the " keystone to the arch " in 
the beginning of a successful and fair solution of 
treaty revision ; it is the key which will unlock the 
doors leading to self-support, and the reasonable 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 185 

increase of needed revenues which will lessen the 
home taxes of the Japanese people, and add to 
their " sinews of war " as well as of peace. 

I have spoken on the resolution offered by the 
second delegate of Germany, with deference to his 
great ability and long experience in the consular 
service of his country; but I must here and now 
express the deliberate opinion that if we " rub out 
and begin anew," which the appointment of this 
committee pre-supposes, we shall not soon, if ever, 
reach a satisfactory solution of treaty revision. 
Mr. Consul Zappe admits, and so do all the dele- 
gates, the equity and binding force of the counter 
project of 1882, next to Protocol No. 10; but he 
seems to ignore the results of the labors of the 
committee of delegates of 1882, of which he and 
my colleague of the Netherlands — Hon. Mr. Van 
der Pot — were such able members. 

If this revised tariff, now presented, combines the 
counter project and the committee's work as it does, 
why take the one and reject the others ? Both are 
the authorized work of Mr. Consul Zappe and his 
associates in 1882, and so recognized in the Memo- 
randum of 1884. 

I have only spoken, my colleagues, for my own 
country and ad referendum. But of this discus- 
sion I hope good may come to Japan. The friendly 
concern of the Republic of the United States in this 



186 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

body is for the peoply only, in their upward strug- 
gle for civilization and the just exercise of their 
rights. The Treaty Powers are abundantly able to 
take care of themselves. 

So far as my remarks which have excited so 
much interest among my colleagues are concerned, 
I need only say that they were occasioned by the 
belief that the Revised Tariff submitted to this Con- 
ference by the Japanese Government was a just and 
equitable scheme, and one which imposed smaller 
duties than most of our governments levied. I 
was willing to accept it on behalf of the United 
States, and, without pretending to decide for others, 
I saw no reason why the representatives of other 
Powers should not do the same. But, because 
prices have fallen since 1882, the Conference has 
decided that the question shall not be reopened, 
and that new dutiable values shall be substituted 
for those proposed by the Japanese Government. 
Be it so. I have expressed the views of my gov- 
ernment upon the subject, and it only remains for 
me to say that the United States will not submit to 
any discrimination against any of their imports in 
the specific rates of duty now to be determined. 
So far as the work of this Conference in that direc- 
tion is concerned, I deem it my imperative duty, in 
view of what has occurred, to make a very clear 

reservation. 

J 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 187 

And now, lastly, in reply to my esteemed British 
colleague, let me say that if I did injustice to Eng- 
land, he must ascribe it to the fact that in citing the 
figures to which he objects, I quoted from the only 
source of information in my possession, the report 
of Japan's Foreign Trade for 1885, which I have 
before me. I think I was justified in supposing 
that the Japanese Government knew what imports 
they received from our respective countries, and 
what exports they sent to us respectively. Sir 
Francis Plunkett says, in effect, that the report is not 
correct, and that China, instead of Great Britain, 
receives credit for several million dollars worth of 
sugar imported to Japan, while a large amount of 
the exports of Japan credited to the United States 
really proceed by way of San Francisco to Canada. 
I must still adhere to the opinion that the figures I 
quoted were correct. They can be found in the 
returns to which I have alluded on pages 89 and 
99. They show, in brief, that the exports of Japan 
to the United States exceed her exports to Great 
Britain by $13,281,890; and they show also that 
the combined exports and imports of the United 
States from and to Japan exceed those of Great 
Britain by $3,512,653. It is a fact, also, and I 
speak advisedly in the presence of the representa- 
tives of the free trade countries, that of the 
$15,000,000 worth of the exports of Japan annually 



188 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

admitted to the United States, $14,000,000 worth 
are so admitted duty free. 

That a portion of the purported exports of Japan 
to the United States may find their way to Canada 
is possibly true, but I cannot see that that fact 
lessens the force of my argument. This trade 
belongs as much to the United States, so far as the 
official records show, as any other portion to which 
we can lay claim. But the question is not, after 
all, a material one. The United States and Great 
Britain are competitors for the world's trade, but 
they are manly competitors and not envious rivals. 
The considerate courtesy with which I have been 
treated by the delegate of Great Britain, on this as 
on all other occasions, is a fair illustration of the 
relations of our respective countries. They may 
give rise to discussions, but they can never result 
I in serious misunderstanding or disagreement." 

The British and German representatives in- 
dicated the want of unity among the delegates 
of the Powers when those distinguished diplo- 
mats (Sir Francis Plunkett and Baron Von 
Holleben) proposed a substitute for all former 
projects, and said : 

" We believe that both the Plenipotentiaries of 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 189 

the Japanese Government and most of our col- 
leagues here assembled, will concede with us the 
view that the drafts so far submitted for the re- 
vision of the treaties do not offer the elements of a 
permanent solution, nor do they afford, unless very 
much altered, a prospect of being practically feasi- 
ble, even as a temporary modus vivendi" 

The discussions proceeded on the substi- 
tuted project of England and Germany, and 
resulted, after nearly three years, in the agree- 
ment of delegates to said project, with amend- 
ments looking to a jurisdictional convention 
for Japan, as appears by the "Annex A," 
hereto attached. The object is obtained of 
presenting the true status of the United States 
in her willingness to give enlarged autonomy 
and jurisdiction and tariff to Japan, with a view 
to complete autonomy in the early future. 
This contention was based on the sacred tradi- 
tions of the Republic that all nations, whose 
progress and education and advance in the 

true elements of law and finance and political 
id 



190 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

intelligence and civilization exhibited a capa- 
city for self-government, should be recognized 
and admitted as co-equals in the family of 
nations. In the opinion of the United States, 
as long ago voiced in the administrations from 
Grant to Cleveland and Harrison, Japan de- 
served such recognition of independence as a 
State. The failure of this Conference of 1886 
and 1887, as of the former one of 1882, cannot 
be laid, therefore, at the door of the great Re- 
public of the West. The wreck of all the 
hopes of Japan, after years of patient waiting, 
was announced to the Conference by the Presi- 
dent and Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the 
following communication, which sounded more 
like a dirge than a formal State paper : 

"Gentlemen of the Treaty Powers: 

The undersigned has had the honor to inform 
the honorable delegates of the Treaty Powers at 
the last meeting of the Conference, that His Impe- 
rial Majesty's Government had desired to propose 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 191 

certain modifications in respect to the draft of the 
Jurisdictional Convention, and that he would be 
shortly in a position to communicate them to the 
members of the Conference. 

A careful examination to which the draft of the 
Jurisdictional Convention was submitted on the 
part of the Imperial Cabinet showed that essential 
modifications and additional interpretations were 
absolutely required ; .particular exception was taken 
however by the Imperial Cabinet to the stipulation 
of Article 5, according to which the Japanese Cod- 
ification had to be submitted to the approbation of 
the foreign powers. It is true that the wording of 
the article itself is not exactly expressed in these 
terms, but the subsequent interpretations which 
have been given to it, prove, in the opinion of the 
cabinet, that this was the real aim. 

The cabinet was, in respect to this, unanimously 
of the opinion that it would be more in conformity 
with the dignity of the Japanese Empire if the laws 
were completed in the first instance, because this 
result would then, in all probability, be sufficient 
to prove that there existed really no cause for the 
submission of the codes to the Treaty Powers, as 
intended by the draft of the Jurisdictional Conven- 
tion. 

The undersigned has, in consequence, to inform 
the honorable delegates that he is authorized by his 



192 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

government to declare herewith the adjournment 
of the Conference sine die, until such time as the 
Japanese delegates will be able to place before the 
Conference, the work of codification which will 
serve as the best evidence of the sincere intention 
which continues to animate the government for the 
assimilation of its administration and laws with the 
west. 

The undersigned trusts that this work, the com- 
pletion of which stands in such an intimate connec- 
tion with the opening of the Empire, will not fail 
to obtain, for the great scheme which the Conference 
is engaged upon, the friendly support of the Treaty 
Powers. 

The undersigned avails himself of this occasion, 
etc., etc." 

(Signed) INOUYE KAORU, 

President of Treaty Powers and 
Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

Hence Treaty Revision by a Conference of 
the great Powers had thus met its death in the 
" house of its friends." It was the first con- 
ference in the world's history, where every 
civilized nation, at the prayer of a so-called 
pagan land, had sat around the same council 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 193 

board to decide the momentous question of its 
national independence. And it requires no 
ken of prophet or seer to predict that it will 
be the last. 

The Treaty Revision is now completed, as 
we write. We attach hereto, "Appendix B," 
a copy of the last treaty with the United States 
with which all the others are practically identi- 
cal, with the exceptions which we shall point 
out hereafter. 

The intention of Count Mutsu, one of the 
most eminent diplomats and statesmen of the 
Empire, under whose direction, as Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, this last successful attempt to 
revise the treaties was begun in 1893, was to 
include Conventional Tariff in four of the trea- 
ties, namely in those of the United States, 
Great Britain, France, and Germany. These 
tariffs were to cover the principal articles of 
import from the countries mentioned (whose 



194 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

trade with Japan, as we know, is more impor- 
tant than that of any other of the Treaty 
Powers), and were to be co-incident with the 
duration of the treaties, in twelve years from 
the date when the treaty should go into opera- 
tion. The date fixed was July 18, 1899. But, 
by a Protocol appended to the treaties, it was 
agreed that before that date Japan might, upon 
giving due notice, put the new tariff into opera- 
tion before the rest of the conventional arrange- 
ments were enforced. The articles not covered 
by the Conventional Tariffs were included in 
the "General Statutory Tariff," or, in other 
words, the tariff fixed by domestic legislation. 
Although only four Powers were to have Con- 
ventional Tariffs all the others will be able to 
avail themselves of the benefits of those tariffs 
under the "most favored nation clauses" in their 
treaties. This was the original arrangement. 
It has been carried out in substance. 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 195 

The United States Government, when the 
last treaty came to be negotiated, waived its 
right to have a Conventional Tariff, while the 
Austro-Hungarian Government insisted upon 
having one. All the treaties having been 
completed and a general statutory tariff having 
been passed, the Imperial Government of Japan 
gave notice, in July, 1897, that the new tariffs 
would be put into operation on the 1st of Jan- 
uary, 1899. These new tariffs will range from 
five per cent, to thirty per cent, ad valorem. 
Only a few articles, such as tobacco, liquors, 
wines, jewelry, etc., will, however, come under 
the higher rates. Important staples will pay, 
on an average, not more that ten per cent. 
Kerosene will be fifteen per cent. Raw cotton 
(and that is an important item so far as the 
South especially, and the whole United States 
generally is concerned) will be free. Bread- 
stuffs, except rice, which is free, will be five per 



196 THE UNITED STATE 8 IN THE FAR EAST. 

cent. On the whole, the rates are very mod- 
erate. The tariff is in no sense protective, but 
is framed solely with an eye to an increase of 
"revenue only." 

The jurisdictional part of the treaties is in 
substance similar to that which the author 
agreed to, when United States Minister. Japan 
will assume complete jurisdiction over foreign- 
ers after July 19th of next year, 1899. In some 
of the treaties, notably in those with France, 
Germany, and Great Britain, it is stipulated by 
an exchange of diplomatic notes, that the new 
codes shall be put into operation before the 
treaties go into effect. That has already been 
done. 

The negotiations with the Powers have been 
in continuous operation since 1895 until the 
spring of 1898, when the Austro-Hungarian 
Treaty was signed. England made the first 
treaty, then the United States, and soon there- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 197 

after, Prussia and Germany. France held back 
for a long time, and some of the Powers hav- 
ing the smallest interest, like Austro-Hungary, 
withheld consent. Now, however, all the trea- 
ties have been happily completed, and on the 
19th of July, 1899, Japan will enter upon a 
new era, and will begin a national existence of 
complete independence. Some foreigners, 
especially old residents of the treaty ports, 
who do not believe that any good can come out 
of Nazareth, express fear of the result ! It is 
hardly necessary for us to say that we do not 
share in this pessimistic belief. Foreign inter- 
ests, in our opinion, will be as safe under the 
new regime as they are at present, and in some 
sense safer, because we will be rid of all the 
inconveniences and sometimes ludicrous anom- 
alies inseparable from the conflict of jurisdic- 
tion. Japan will be, in a way, upon trial before 
the world, and we may depend upon it that no 



198 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

effort will be spared by this wonderful people 
to earn the approval of impartial observers. 

The present condition in Japan is a curious 
condition. Marquis Ito, Count Inouye, Count 
General Yamagata, Count General Kuroda, 
and others of the older leaders are ? in retire- 
ment (in 1898), voluntary and otherwise, and 
Count Oku ma and Count Atagaki have formed 
a party cabinet. The former is at the head of 
the Shimpobo (Progressionists), and the latter 
of the Jiuto (Liberals). Hitherto these parties 
have been at daggers drawn ; now they have 
formed a coalition, making the most powerful 
political combination which has thus far ap- 
peared in Japan. How long it will last, and 
how harmoniously it will v/ork, remains to be 
seen. At all events, it looks from this side of 
the Pacific like the beginning of party govern- 
ment in Japan. 

Our readers must not imagine from what we 



MODERN' JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 199 

have said above that Ito and Inouye have been 
put on the shelf. Either of these really great 
statesmen could figure in the public affairs as 
of old if he chose, but we believe that Inouye, 
the Minister for Foreign Affairs during three 
years of our ministry, is sincerely convinced 
that he has earned a long deserved rest, while 
Ito merely bides his time. .' 

These great men have deserved too well of 
their country to be ignominiously set aside, 
and either of them could gain the leadership 
as of old if he chose to enter the contest for 
supremacy. The leading questions with which 
the Japanese Government has to deal at 
present, are most important. One is the finan- 
cial situation. There is a deficit, as we write, 
temporary, but troublesome. This could easily 
be met by reforming the national land tax ; but 
the present government is pledged not to 
adopt that measure. Probably recourse will 



200 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

be had to a foreign loan, say of $50,000,000. 
The Empire is, on the whole, in a highly pros- 
perous condition. The Chinese war caused 
the usual expansion, and now there is reaction 
and contraction, but all the indications are that 
it is temporary and precedes the "red letter 
day" in Japan's material prosperity. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN INDEPENDENTLY 
OF THE TREATY POWERS ENTER INTO A 
SEPARATE TREATY, RECOGNIZING THE EARLY 
AND COMPLETE AUTONOMY OF THE EMPIRE. 






'if'~wr% hk United states after the faiiure 

V M J of Japan (in 1896-7), to obtain 
&^$±4&>Z' from all the Powers a recognition 
of her right to partial if not complete inde- 
pendence, and their neglect as she regarded it, 
to lighten the yoke of extra-territorialism and 
to strike off the shackles of political vassalage, 
proposed to Japan the negotiation of a sepa- 
rate convention without the leave of other 
nations. That proposition after full conference 
with the President and the State Department 
of the Government at Washington was form- 

[201] 



202 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

ally submitted by the United States Minister 
through the Foreign Affairs Department to 
His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. 
That important negotiation began within ten 
days after the final adjournment of the Treaty 
Conference in 1888. The despair of Japan of 
ever obtaining the just and long deserved 
recognition of her national independence was 
now manifest. Her only hope, the only star 
that beamed on her night was in western skies. 
One of the greatest of the representative men 
of this new era was Fuji Sawa, a patriot and 
scholar, the founder of colleges, the advocate 
of free schools, and the father of the modern 
and enlightened and liberal press of Japan, 
and its greatest editor. He called upon the 
United States Minister, and that interview is 
worthy of enduring record. Fuji Sawa had 
often declined the highest positions in the cabi- 
net and royal titles from the crown. Of that 




Hon James O. Blaine, Secretary of State under President 

Harrison's Administration and under whom Minister 

Hubbard served a part of said Administration. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 203 

proposed separate treaty between our respec- 
tive nations, he expressed the most grateful 
approval. We give an accurate translation of 
his eloquent words, never before in print : 

"Japan has emerged from the night of ignorance 
and superstition ; she has for over a third of a cen- 
tury invoked every agency for good, drunk from 
every fountain of knowledge within her reach, and 
reaped from every field of statesmanship the higher 
civilization around the earth. She has worshipped at 
the altars of peace, but prepared for war by sea and 
land if injustice and oppression from abroad should 
seek her destruction. She has extended to the wes- 
tern nations, the " olive branch " of toleration and 
grasped their hands in unselfish fellowship. In our 
hopeful confidence, now shattered, we asked only 
for the acknowledgment of at least, our gradual 
and deserving approach to national autonomy. 

It would be cowardly now to curse the hand 

whose aid we sought. The great Powers came to 

Japan forty years ago and more, bringing to us a 

new and strange religion ; but teaching what they 

called the " Golden Rule." That teaching has 

sounded sweetly to our ears, but has been broken 

to our hopes. The United States is a republican 

and democratic power, and opposed to dynasties of 
17 



204 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Emperors and Kings. Nevertheless, your country 
has been the first to open the gates of the oldest 
Monarchy on the globe, save China, with a promise 
of hope, and in all the years since that historic day, 
down to this late abortive International Conference, 
you have been ready and seemingly anxious to wel- 
come Japan into the independent family of nations. 
Deeds, not words, have made your intercourse with 
us fruitful of noblest results. 

We shall respect our old treaties till " forbear- 
ance ceases to be a virtue." But we must say 
calmly, as did your ancestors in 1776, in the " Dec- 
laration of Independence " that, " Japan has a right 
to be a free and independent State." Yes, sir; this 
Empire will join the United States in such a treaty, 
and cut loose her ship from the moorings of the 
past, feeling confident that, with the strong arm of 
the United States to aid us, we shall yet be free." 

Those were the literal words of this great 
untitled Japanese. He touched the pulse of 
the Empire from Emperor to coolie ! We can 
never forget, and never wish to forget, until 
knightly courage and justice shall cease to rule 
in the counsels of men, how Japan took the 
proffered hand of our country in her proposal 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 205 

to enter at once into a separate and independ- 
ent treaty. 

The Emperor and the successor of Count 
Inoye, His Excellency Count Okuma, like the 
former, one of the ablest men of Japan, echoed 
the sentiment of Fuji Sawa. "The stone 
which was set at naught by the builders is 
become the head-stone of the corner." The 
main essential of the independent treaty which 
the United States had negotiated in 1878, and 
which, unfortunately, being ad referendum, the 
other Powers rejected, was again invoked sub- 
stantially in this last project, independent of 
the action of all the Treaty Powers. 

That Treaty became an accomplished fact, 
and was duly signed and approved by His 
Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, and His Excel- 
lency, the President of the United States, con- 
forming to all the diplomatic formalities and 
then transmitted to Washington for the final 
action of the American Senate. 



206 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

It reached the capital ten days after Presi- 
dent Harrison had succeeded President Cleve- 
land in the presidential office. The author 
was personally and officially cognizant of the 
fact that the foreign policy of the United States 
toward Japan had been for a third of a century 
wholly unpartisan. This last independent 
Treaty of 1888 would have been ratified (a 
part of the unwritten political history of these 
times) had it reached Washington before the 
change in the political administration of the 
government. That change naturally demanded 
time and consideration de novo in so radical 
and grave a treaty as it was, by senators and 
a president who was just entering the new ad- 
ministration. Meantime through artful diplo- 
macy, Japan was induced to ask that the treaty 
be temporarily withdrawn or returned for fur- 
ther action by her government. President 
Harrison concurred in the policies of our gov- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 207 

ernment toward Japan, and of all his great pre- 
decessors, and from personal conference with 
the then Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine, we 
were assured by that great secretary and 
typical American of the fact that the failure to 
submit this independent treaty to the United 
States Senate was neither the fault nor the 
desire of the administration of President Harri- 
son. We digress for a moment to place an 
''immortelle" on the grave of the great sec- 
retary. The author, at his request, met Mr. 
Blaine at the famous sea resort of "Bar Harbor," 
on the New England coast, in 1890, on his 
return from Japan. We never listened to 
more eloquent defenses of the then, as now, 
foreign policy of this country favoring the sep 
arate negotiation of treaties recognizing all 
nations, whether pagan or christian, who by 
advances in civilization deserved self-govern- 
ment. Years passed by. The seed sown by 



208 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

our country did not fall in waste places nor on 
stony ground. The reaping in due time will 
follow the sowing, and the full fruition, as the 
dew of heaven, will " bless him that gives and 
him that receives." The brave and statesman- 
like part which President Cleveland and Mr. 
Secretary Bayard then bore in behalf of Japan, 
from 1885 to 1890 will grow brighter with the 
years. 

The treaty now ratified and awaiting its 
time and the similar conventions of England 
and other Powers, changed in form but not in 
substance since the Conference of 1886 and 
1887, will, in the swiftly coming time (in 1899), 
usher Japan into the independent family of 
nations. Impartial history will accord to the 
United States the inauguration of Japan's real 
independence. It is no vain boasting. 

While we pen these lines (in 1898), there 
reaches our State Department at Washington, 




Bon. Thomas F. Bayard, United States Secretary of State 
from 1885 to 1890. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 209 

and the Japanese Legation, an official procla- 
mation and notification that on the ioth of 
June, 1898, the Government of Japan pro- 
claimed that the new Japanese statutory tariff 
with the United States as well as the English, 
German, French, and Austro-Hungarian Con- 
ventional Tariffs, would be put into effect on 
the 1 st of January, 1899. This step marks the 
inauguration of Japan's new treaty relations 
with the western Powers. 

The following is a list of the new duties on 
some of the principal exports from the United 
States to Japan : (The " Iron clad " treaties of 
1854 and 1858 restricted their imposition of 
duties on exports from all the countries to 5 
per cent, ad valorem.) 

Iron and steel, manufactured, 10 per cent.; pig, 5 
per cent.; grain, of kinds except rice, 5 per cent.; 
alcohol, 40 per cent.; liquors, 40 per cent.; tobacco, 
leaf, 35 per cent.; cut, cigars, and cigarettes, 40 per 
cent.; sugar, raw, 5 per cent.; refined, 20 per cent.; 



210 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

crystalized, 25 per cent.; molasses, 10 per cent.; 
cotton, raw, waste, and spun, free; yarns, 10 pet- 
cent.; sewing thread and other manufactures of, 15 
per cent. 

It has been truthfully written that " Trade 
and the Almighty Dollar whether among men 
or among nations, has no 'coat of arms,' no 
marks of patriotism and exhibits no gratitude 
for the past or philanthropic ambitions for the 
future."' That may be true as a rule ; yet the 
picture which the lantern casts on the canvas 
of the future, will portray the United States as 
a "great rock in a weary land" under whose 
shadow and protection Japan first sought 
refuge and liberty not in vain. Other nations 
followed but did not lead our country, in this 
grand achievement for justice and humanity. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE RELIGIONS OE JAPAN AND PROGRESS OE THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 



zw"- 



\$ l \ ll HE religions of Japan are Buddhism 
and Shintoism. The authodox 



>**gp 




^^^^^^^ world would classify these beliefs 
as "pagan" and "heathen." The Japan of 
to-day resents this last imputation because of 
the offensive definitions attached thereto by 
the English lexicons. In the meaning of sen- 
sual depravity, and barbarism and that sort of 
superstition in Church and State, unrelieved by 
the light of civilization, this people are hetero- 
dox, it is true, but not "heathen." The creed 
of the Buddhists for 2500 years, like the Koran 
of Mohammed, the philosophy and pandects of 
Confucius and Mencius teaches a code of good 

[211] 



212 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

morals, presenting the duties of the subject to 
his home and to his country, and to his fellow- 
man (largely embracing in substance, the "Ten 
Commandments" of our own Hebrew Bible), 
in spirit that must be honored by all christian 
lands, without reference to its origin or its 
creed. And yet, in their religion, one finds no 
permanent solace here, or hope for the here- 
after. Searching therefor he wanders and 
gropes in a night of mystery and gloom. 
There is to him no polar star rising above that 
night to guide his ship to ports of security and 
everlasting rest. The author proposes to 
speak only of the prevailing religions of to-day 
in Japan, and not of the centuries of their ex- 
istence, for Buddhism claims to antedate the 
christian era by over 500 years. It is the old- 
est form of worship known to men, excepting 
only that disclosed in the Hebrew Bible, 
wherein prophets and "holy men of old" wrote 




Buddhist Priests. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 213 

under the inspiration of God, foretelling the 
coming- of Christ on earth ; His crucifixion, His 
resurrection and ascension, and the promises 
of immortal life, literally fulfilled nearly 2000 
years ago in Judea and on the cross of Calvary. 

Buddha, as painted in Sir Edwin Arnold's 
"Light of Asia," founded on profane history 
and hoary traditions, was as well authenticated 
as the birth of the Christian Redeemer at Beth- 
lehem. 

He was the son of a prince and excelled all 
the youths of his time, and in early manhood 
he led to the altar of holy wedlock a beautiful 
princess, and in a splendid palace his life was 
all happy until, so runs the romantic legend, 
he looked out on the world's sins and desola- 
tions and sufferings and sorrows, and, resolving 
to devote his life to their alleviation, he became 
a self-imposed exile from his palace, his wife 
and children, and, renouncing the inheritance 



214 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

of a mighty kingdom, amid perils and priva- 
tions sought to find the way to true happiness. 
The story recites that the " devil " appeared to 
Buddha and tempted him (as our own Christ 
was tempted on the mount), with the promise 
that all the world should be his Empire ; and 
eternal life in "Nirvana" should be his if he 
would only bow down to His Satanic Majesty. 
Buddha resisted the arch tempter, and be- 
came transformed and divine. Henceforth his 
active mission began, and he went from house 
to house and land to land and sea to sea, 
preaching the new doctrine of his church. He 
taught that by overcoming temptations to sin 
and wicked desires, mankind might reach eter- 
nal happiness and a life of progression in 
divine knowledge after death. He was, long 
after his death, by inspiration of the gods, 
made a deity. He was, nevertheless, only a 
philosopher, not a redeemer. Like Confucius, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 215 

his cult claimed and still claims, that men may 
work out their own salvation, that the divinity- 
which makes life happy here and beyond the 
grave (for the immortality of the soul is taught) 
is devotion and obedience to the Good as a 
passport to the rest of Nirvana. The idea of 
the Christians' living God existing from eter- 
nity, Creator of heaven and earth and all 
things, appears only vaguely in the earliest 
canons on Buddha. These were written during 
his life, but for twenty centuries no well-defined, 
intelligent recognition of one omnipresent and 
omnicient God appeared in any of their so- 
called '• Bibles," or in any of the legends and 
traditions of their creed. And yet, carved in 
leaves of bronze in the great temples of Kyoto 
and Shiba, are inscribed these words, purport- 
ing to be from the pen of Buddha : " Higher 
than the heavens and far beneath hell, beyond 
the farthest stars, and farther than Brahma 

18 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 217 

reads as follows : " He who has toiled as a 
slave, may reappear as a prince ; he who has 
ruled as a king may, perhaps, on his reappear- 
ance wander in rags. Higher than India (the 
God of heaven) ye may exalt your lot, and 
sink it lower than worms. Seek nothing from 
helpless idols (of Brahmanism), salvation lies 
in yourselves. Every one makes his own 
prison ; his own actions prepare for him joy or 
pain." According to this ancient religion, the 
earthly life is made unhappy only as a result of 
the present or former sins of a man or of his 
ancestors. Five hundred millions of pagan 
worshippers embrace the creed and hope that 
the happiness of this life and of the life to come 
depends solely on the man and not on the God. 

Whether this transitory existence is to be 
long or short, a pathway of flowers or full of 
thorns, depends entirely on the individual. 
But whether this life is stained with ''murder 



218 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

or theft or robbery or lying or hypocrisy or 
anger, pride, envy, greed, talkativeness, cruelty 
to animals," all of which black catalogue is de- 
nounced by Buddha, or whether it is ennobled 
by "love of father and mother and children, 
gratitude, patience, calmness of soul, and 
fidelity," all of which he commands, neverthe- 
less, there is to be no hell here or hereafter ! 

The highest known authority on Eastern 
cults, Dr. Eitel, a Christian, says that " Budd- 
hism is but a philosophical atheism." It 
deifies man instead of God. It banishes from 
the universe the existence of a creative and 
ruling deity ; yet it has exerted a great civiliz- 
ing power in Asia ; has driven out the bloody 
sacrifices of earlier cults ; counteracted the 
rigid spirit of caste ; and spread a mild and 
peaceful tone of thought among the great 
masses of the people. 

It has fostered, if not generated in Japan, the 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 219 

unique civilization and culture which existed 
up to the memorable negotiation of the first 
American treaty, and has intensified by its 
teachings, the susceptibility of the people to 
the beauties of nature and of art. It has fur- 
nished China and Japan more than Shintoism 
ever did, or than the moral teachings of Confu- 
cius and Mencius and the Chinese sages of 
old ever did. In brief, Buddhism is Atheism 
deifying man in the form of a romantic and 
weird worship; morally, it teaches the " vanity 
and instability of all earthly good, the migra- 
tion of souls, and the final absorption in Nir- 
vana (the Buddhists' heaven)"; and that the 
salvation from sin and crime, and the atone- 
ment to Nirvana must be made by our own 
strength and good deeds. 

Of Shintoism, we need only say in passing 
that it makes no pretenses to divine origin. 
It is the deification of patriotism of the soldier 



220 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

who dies for his country, and of the household 
gods of the home, and the worship of the 
Mikado, descended by their mythology from 
the gods. It had and has no heaven, no 
denunciation of hell, no bright hopes beyond 
the grave. It is essentially infidel or agnostic, 
and is passing away. Since the restoration, 
the Emperor has appeared and emerged from 
his "celestial cloisters" of Kyoto and walks 
among his subjects as other men, and while 
they love, they no longer worship him as a 
god. Shintoism among the millions is doomed. 
There are but few great temples dedicated to 
that cult in all the Empire. The Buddhism of 
to-day, as the author saw it outside and inside 
of the temples, or in the ministrations of its 
priests, is also in the decadence of its long life. 
Most of the Buddhist priests of this era have 
forgotten the earnest exhortations of the early 
church to self-knowledge, purity of life, and of 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 221 

the home and of the State, and spend their time 
in external observance and idle mummeries, 
and display debasing and astonishing ignorance 
even of their own religion of Buddha. The 
millions knowing nothing of, and caring less 
for, its early teachings, are won by the gilt and 
glare and pomp and splendor of their olden 
temple worship and unmeaning ceremonials 
and the festivals of the saints as celebrated by 
the priests. Thus, when Christianity was borne 
across the sea, nearly half a century ago, from 
the West to the far East in Japan, it was soon 
recognized by natives as well as foreign born 
that its teachings and its hopes, reaching 
" beyond the vale," were alone of all the beliefs 
adapted, not only to develop the higher civili- 
zation in life, but to yield complete satisfaction 
to the earnest religious yearnings of every race 
for rest eternal. 



222 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

Part Borne by Christian Missionaries. 

We cannot suffer this opportunity to pass 
without paying a just and deserved tribute to 
the noble part the devoted missionaries of all 
Christian lands have borne in the moral and 
educational evolution of Japan. Their acquisi- 
tion of the native tongue is, of course, the first 
desideratum of the Christian evangelists who 
make the preaching of the gospel in foreign 
lands a life-work. The next, and to our obser- 
vation the most effectual means of reaching 
and converting the pagan mind and heart, is 
through the medium of the missionary schools. 
The last is the public " preaching of the Word," 
and those precepts of the new and to them 
strange religion of Christ, enforced by practice 
and example of daily life in relieving the sick 
and the suffering. Thus, with confidence 
gained and prejudices destroyed, the trusting 




Aged "Dimaio" and Wife, of Feudal Times. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 223 

and intelligent pagan is led into the way he 
knew not before. The missionaries have done 
a great work for the elevation of Japan outside 
of their distinctive Christian evangelization 
The nobles and the coolies — all classes — with- 
out a shadow of sectarian feeling, patronize the 
schools of the missionaries, representing all the 
different Christian denominations of civilized 
nations. They are opened, of course, without 
charge to the children of the natives as well as, 
to adults — men and women of all ages. The 
invitations are always eagerly accepted, the 
first and great ambition of the people being to 
acquire Western secular knowledge. Thus, by 
winning the confidence of the student and 
youthful class and leading them into new paths 
of learning and new views of our civilization (to 
them veritable revelations), the beginning is 
made and the soil is ready for sowing the seeds 
of Christianity. From a small beginning in 



224 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

that distant field forty years ago or more, 
without friction with the government or the 
Buddhists prelates and priests, a great harvest 
has been gathered by the reapers up to this 
happy hour. That ingathering by all the 
denominations of the Christian church, it is esti- 
mated to-day, amounts to 150,000 of native 
converts. That membership is composed 
mostly of the middle and more intelligent 
unofficial classes of the Empire. Some few 
high in position, as famous editors of great 
daily newspapers and in the Department of the 
Government, are now, and have been for many 
years, worshipping at Christian altars. Largely 
the native Christian churches are becoming 
self sustaining, with their own buildings and 
pastors. While in name and in doctrine defin- 
ing the policies and modes of these churches, 
among the foreign Methodists, Baptists, Pres- 
byterian, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and the 
Greek, and all other faiths, the same distinctions 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 225 

are preserved there as in the West ; yet we 
found no acrimony, no sectarianism, as such, no 
discussions of bitterness among them. They 
long ago formed themselves into a " Christian 
Union," and excepting only the Church of 
England, the Roman Church, and the Greek 
Church, all unite in the worship of God and 
in the spread of the gospel of Christ as one 
church in the public ministry. 

Relegating questions of creeds and local 
church differences to their respective organized 
bodies, they all unite in acknowledging the 
same Almighty God, the Father of the Son 
who died a vicarious sacrifice for the human 
race ; the atonement ; the resurrection, and 
the life everlasting. To do otherwise would 
be to be confronted by the native enquirer for 
truth with the embarrassing question often put 
to the early missionaries " Why do you pro- 
claim a religion of peace on earth and goo^ 

19 



226 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

will to men and yet engage in war among 
yourselves? " 

But aside from the increase of their Christian 
followers, the influences of these missionaries — 
devoted men, and yet more devoted women — 
through school and social intercourse, has 
wrought a wonderful advancement in the civili- 
zation of the East, in the creation of ambition 
for higher mental attainments. 

The author, in the after years of his sojourn 
in that beautiful land, realized the truth of the 
touching tribute once paid by the Empress 
(heretofore recited), to the noble part performed 
by Christian missionary women in the elevation 
of the womanhood of Japan. 

While Buddhism is the prevailing religion of 
the Empire, and has been for many centuries, 
and differing, as of course the author does, and 
as does the Christian world, from the pagan 
worship of Buddha, we would be unjust to his- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 227 

tory did we not make glad acknowledgment 
of the fact that the Government of Japan allows 
complete religious freedom. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



TOLERATION TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 




N this regard she stands separate 
and alone among all the nations 
'?[$€$ of the Orient. In the now nearly 
one-half of a century since Japan and the 
United States pledged, in their first treaty, 
friendship and honor and fidelity to each other, 
not one instance of religious persecution 
against Christians has ever occurred. Not 
only has that government kept faith with the 
stipulations of the letter of the treaties that 
the freedom of the American and the Japanese 
to worship in either land as they pleased, 
should be acknowledged ; but the spirit of that 
toleration finds a voice and an echo throughout 
an Empire of forty millions of people, nine- 

[228] 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 229 

tenths of whom are still Buddhists in faith. 
During our mission at the capital, the author 
on various occasions in private intercourse, as 
well as in official discussions of the new Re- 
vised Treaties, has heard the Emperor himself, 
through the interpreter and such really great 
statesmen as Ito, Inouye, Okuma, Mori, Yos- 
hida, Fuji Sawa and others, declare unreservedly 
" that Japan, as a political power, did not con- 
cern itself with religious cults or creeds — those 
at home or those from abroad." 

The substance of these remarkable and tole- 
rant words was that they were glad to wel- 
come all good men, and especially Americans, 
whether coming as traders and merchants or 
as missionaries, bearing and teaching as they do, 
a new and strange religion. They send their 
children to the colleges and schools of the mis- 
sionaries as willingly as to their own. They 
have added to their ancient arts of sculpture 



230 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

and painting, the learning of the modern 
schools of the West. 

Conversing once with the eminent Japanese 
Minister to the United States, Count Mori, 
who himself became a Christian while in 
America, and afterwards Minister of Educa- 
tion, and Minister to England, he said to the 
author: "The Emperor and his cabinet, so 
long as no unkind assaults are made on the 
national religions, will in the future continue 
to exercise absolute toleration. They do not 
care if all Japan's millions of subjects unite 
with the Christian church so it is done of their 
own free will, and without menace." It was 
this great Minister who once earnestly sought 
the adoption of Christianity as the " State 
Church" of Japan. 



CHAPTER XX. 



SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 




E cannot refrain from adverting 
to the separation of Church and 
State in Japan, which occurred 
shortly after the Revolution. For ages the 
Imperial Government had maintained the Budd- 
hist and Shinto churches as the national re- 
ligions, exempting them from taxation and 
imposing taxes on the people for their support. 
By decree of the present Emperor, the tem- 
poral support of the former national church was 
withdrawn forever. In this regard it stands 
alongside of Mexico in the confiscation of the 
wealth of the Church of Rome in that Republic 
by President Juarez after the fall of Max- 

millian. Japan in this regard has outstripped 

£231] 



232 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

even England and Germany and Russia, whose 
State religions (Episcopal, Lutheran, and the 
Greek church), for years have been maintained 
by the government from taxes imposed on all 
" dissenters," and on the " heterodox" millions 
of those Christian lands. 

The author makes no invidious assault on 
those Christian Powers because of their "State 
religions," but American as he is, and glorying 
as he does in a constitution and laws reco^niz- 
ine freedom of conscience and freedom to wor- 
ship God " under our own vine and fig tree," 
where " none dare to molest or make us afraid," 
we confess to a profound admiration for such 
an unparalleled revolutionary act by a pagan 
land. It was a new departure from the record 
of the past, a record two thousand years of age, 
when intolerance and superstition sat side by 
side. 

It was and is the harbinger of a better day 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. ' 233 

for Japan. We note before closing this chap- 
ter that already Buddhism and Shintoism rest 
lightly on the masses, and especially on the 
Imperial houses of the Empire. The truth 
must be told, and it does not offend them to 
tell it, that as a rule to-day, Buddhism and 
Shintoism have but few followers, save in name, 
among the princes and nobles of Japan. The 
same is true to a great extent of the young 
men of the colleges and universities of Japan, 
and of those who have been educated abroad, 
especially in the German universities. They 
train with the schools of Huxley, John Stuart 
Mill, Darwin, Paine, and Ingersoll, and are 
really ''agnostic," if not infidels. One finds 
the works of all these great authors translated 
into Japanese in the libraries of the govern- 
ment, as well as in the private libraries, and on 
the shelves of all the great book stores of the 
cities of Japan. Nevertheless, the free-thinkers 



234 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

of the natives will listen earnestly to the public 
and private teachings of the foreign mis- 
sionaries and often contest their arguments. 
If they are convinced of their error, they make 
open confession always, and their espousal of 
Christ works to them no prejudice, much less 
loss of position or prestige in the Empire. 

The author, whose place is in the pew and 
not in the pulpit, will be pardoned for saying 
to his Christian countrymen and to Christians 
in other lands, that in the propagation of the 
Christian religion in foreign pagan countries, 
Japan has for many years been sadly neg- 
lected. India and Burmah and Hindoostan, 
and China especially, have received hundreds 
and thousands of these noble and self-sacri- 
ficing evangelists, from Judson and Cary, of 
blessed memory, down to this day. Not until 
the past two or three decades has Japan re- 
ceived that attention from the Christian world 
that she deserved. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 235 

Her gates are wide open and the hearts and 
homes welcome the missionaries always with 
kind greetings. Their toleration is real and 
not perfunctory. Forty millions of souls are 
there to be saved, and yet hundreds of 
thousands and millions of these people have 
never heard of Christ or His promises of the 
better and eternal life. In Burmah, Hin- 
doostan, Corea, and China, there is, outside of 
the treaty ports, barbarous and bloody intol- 
erance against the Christian religion. Many 
missionaries, in the interior, and their families 
have been murdered or driven from their posts 
by fanatical Buddhist mobs, and their residences 
and schools and church buildings often burned 
to ashes. The late troubles with Germany, as 
aforetime with Great Britain and the United 
States, arose almost entirely because of the 
destruction of persons and property of foreign 
missionaries by fanatical Buddhists. 



236 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

In no instance in all these years since Com- 
modore Perry's time has Japan ever offered 
any indignity, much less sought to injure, the 
persons or property of the missionaries. The 
Buddhist so-called religion promises them abso- 
lute immunity from punishment after death. 
In China and Corea, that belief means license 
and fanaticism. In Japan the church obeys 
the government implicitly. 

One of the romantic features of their faith is 
the belief that after death the Buddhist believer 
is borne on spirit wings to Nirvana, where, at 
its gates, like the "Peri" of the song, their 
kindred of all ages welcome them with music 
of harps to everlasting rest. The writer, in 
1887, during a terrible epidemic of Asiatic 
cholera, when six or seven hundred people 
were daily dying in the capital, was invited 
with his bright Secretary of Legation, Mr. 
Fred. S. Mansfield, by one of the most eminent 




Approach to the Famous Shrines of the Buddhists. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 237 

physicians of Japan, to go with him to the 
national hospital. We accepted that, to us 
strange invitation, with reluctance. His apology 
was, that he desired to show us, in no spirit of 
proselytism, that the "Japanese Buddhist was 
never afraid to die!' We were willing to 
admit anything to avoid this gruesome visita- 
tion ! In the vast national hospital we saw at 
least twenty of the patients of all classes die. 
They were told by doctor and by priest that 
they had but an hour or more to live. In 
genuine " Asiatic cholera," an hour or more 
before dissolution, pain ceases and reason 
returns to its throne. We put on record here 
the fact, not as establishing in the least degree, 
for it does not, our own or any well-grounded 
belief in the truth of their creeds, but as show- 
ing their unbounded faith in the Buddhist's 
Nirvana. That faith made these dying pagans, 
when told by doctor and priest that they could 



238 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

not live, smile with rapture as they fearlessly- 
entered the " valley and shadow of death." 

In pestilence or war, they are, on this account, 
utterly fearless of death. Preceding the hour 
of dissolution, their kindred and friends exhibit 
the natural grief as in Christian lands, but 
when death comes and conquers, then, robed 
in spotless white, with music and songs of joy, 
and with " immortelles," they bear the loved 
one to their national crematories where the 
body is burned to ashes, and placed in sacred 
urns, forever thereafter to be worshipped as 
the "lares and penates " of home or temple. 

Most modern poets, like Sir Edwin Arnold, 
and Hearne and Lowell, and others, have dis- 
credited Christianity in Japan, and to that ex- 
tent discredited the Hebrew Scriptures and 
the New Testament Revelations of our Christ. 
Their ship, however, without Christ as compass, 
is sailing on a fathomless sea of mysticism. It 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 239 

is beautiful in precepts of love and fidelity to 
home and country, but there is no sure anchor 
for the believers in the night of the tempest. 
Huxley, the great author on " evolution" and 
the ''survival of the fittest," says that " Budd- 
hism accepts that god of the Brahmins who 
is the creature and not the supreme creator of 
'evolution,'" and the learned Dharmapoli, of 
India, whom the author met at the World's 
"Congress of Religions" at Chicago, says, 
"there is no difference between the perfect 
man and the Supreme God of this world." 

In conclusion, we must admit, nevertheless, 
that Buddha was a greater philosopher than 
Confucius or Mencius. The religion that he 
formed before the coming of Christ, may be 
likened to a river rising from mountain heights, 
flowing through forest and field, with never a 
storm on its bosom, with overhanging ever- 
greens, where music of bird and winds aeolian 
20 



240 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

mingle together, and on whose waters happy 
men and women are borne to the sea ; but it is 
a shoreless and unknown sea. That is Budd- 
hism ; beautiful in life, but hopeless in death. 
Most of our readers, perhaps, have read that 
weird and beautiful poem, the " Light of Asia," 
of which we have already made mention, and 
consequently they are familiar with the story 
of the Indian prince who, taught within the 
precincts of a palace to believe that the world 
was all beautiful and all mankind happy — was 
so shocked and bewildered by his first contact 
with pain, poverty, and sorrow, and by his 
inability to alleviate or remove them, that he 
renounced all worldly honors and pleasures 
and devoted himself to a life of religious 
mendicancy and meditation. In some of the 
old temples of Japan there is a picture of the 
death of Buddha ; and in " Sheba Temple," of 
Tokio, it will be found engraved on a small 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 241 

monolith. The artist has introduced into his 
picture representatives of all orders of created 
beings, and the different ranks of human 
society as mourners around the couch of the 
dying sage. The inhabitants of three worlds, 
heaven, earth, and hell, contribute to the 
impressiveness of the scene ; and one cannot 
but feel that the picture, whencesoever its 
inspiration came, supplies at least a clew to the 
solution of the problem of life and death ; that 
the Raphael-like precision and suggestiveness 
of the " Death of Buddha" are more satisfying 
than the gorgeous Orientalism of the " Light 
of Asia ; " and that the painter has surpassed 
the poet. And yet with all its impressive 
romance and beauty, there is no anchor "sure 
and steadfast " to make safe the ship of life in 
night and tempest. There is nothing in the 
pandects or poetry or sculpture or painting of 
their pagan religions that brings to mortal life 



242 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

surcease from sorrow here and hope of the life 
everlasting, as does that one simple recital of 
the sympathy and power and majesty of the 
Christ at Bethany, when to weeping sisters, He 
bade the dead brother rise to life again. By 
that loving and omniscient act death was con- 
quered and the resurrection is vouchsafed to 
the fallen race. 

The light that never fell on sea or shore 
breaks upon us ; the strains of the harpers, 
whom we cannot see, are wafted to us, and 
already in spirit we join our friends above on 
the other and eternal shore. That is the 
Christian religion, and its promise of the ever- 
lasting rest. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE POPULATION, AREA, AND INDUSTRIES OF JAPAN. 




HE exact extent of Japanese terri- 
tory is set down in their official 
tables at 156,604 square miles. 

The population at the last census (1890) 
was 40,453,461. Of this total, 20,431,097 were 
males, and 20,022,236 were females. 

The exports of the Empire were $790,527,272, 
and the imports from foreign countries was 
$62,927,268. 

Of railways there were 5,000 miles, connect- 
ing all the principal cities from the extreme 
northern frontiers to Nagasaki in the south. 
A new departure from the West will be 
observed in the fact that in 1892, their parlia- 
ment permitted the government to construct, 

L243] 



244 THE UNITED STATES IN THE EAR EAST. 

own, and control lines of railway, and to issue 
bonds thereon. These bonds were negotiated 
in the great financial markets of Europe, and 
eagerly taken at par and three per cent, interest. 
The State ownership and control of railways 
has long been in the United States, as is well 
known, a mooted and questionable policy. In 
Japan, nearly all of the great transportation 
lines by rail or river, canal or sea, are owned 
by the government. The cost of passenger 
transportation is from one to three cents per 
mile (silver) according to the class of coaches ; 
and the cost of freight is in the same ratio, 
less than in Europe or America. There are of 
telegraph lines about 8,000 miles, connecting 
the cities by the sea with the interior towns, at 
rates fifty per cent, less for ten words than 
in the United States ; while all the great cities 
like Tokio, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki, 
are connected by cable with Europe and 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 245 

America by two routes, costing from two to 
three dollars in gold per word. 

The postal service of the Empire is modelled 
after our system in America, and their national 
banking is an exact copy or reproduction of 
the American national banking system. 

Besides all these comparatively recent im- 
provements, they have now the electric light ; 
the street-car (electric and cable), and the 
telephone in nearly all the great cities, and 
sometimes they are found far inland. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



FUTURE COMMERCIAL RELATIONS NICARAUGUA 

CANAL. 




E have briefly adverted to the 
commercial status of Japan in 
1 886-1 887 towards the United 
States. While the author was at his post at 
Tokio, the Suez canal passed into the control 
of England. Count De Lesseps went down in 
financial wreck in the attempt to build the 
ocean transit at Panama. 

It was during the last days of our adminis- 
tration that we had conference with Marquis Ito 
and Count Inouye and Count Okuma, the then, 
as now, three great leaders of the Empire, and 
with the Chinese Minister, His Excellency 
Hsu Cheng Tsu, and the Corean Minister, as 

[246J 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 247 

well as with a number of the most opulent and 
oldest tea and silk merchants of the East, 
familiar with the commercial wants of the 
countries represented by them. These con- 
ferences, not strictly official in a diplomatic 
sense, were nevertheless intended to reach in 
an unofficial way the government at Washing- 
ton, as they did. 

The subject discussed was the Nicaraugua 
canal, in its prospective relations to Japan and 
the Orient. We were requested to say to our 
government that Japan, China, and Corea 
looked to the United States for more enlarged 
and liberal commercial intercourse. The 
Chinese Minister wished the United States to 
know that he spoke by authority of Li Hung 
Chang for his people, in declaring that the 
then recent act of Congress in preventing 
further immigration of his countrymen to the 
United States made no difference in the friendly 



248 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

commercial relations of China with our country. 
These leading diplomats at various times ex- 
pressed with earnestness their hope for the 
earliest construction and completion of an 
ocean transit across the isthmus of Nica- 
raueua. 

They said to the author that Japan, China, 
and Corea had jointly a population of five hun- 
dred millions or more of people. At that time, 
and for many years previously, they had been 
at the mercy of England and Continental 
Europe commercially, as well as in the money 
exchanges. They wanted to cut loose from 
their financial bondage to Europe. The " Suez 
canal," owned then by the Bank of England 
and the Rothschilds, furnished no relief to the 
growing volume of the European and Oriental 
trade. It was a calamity, if not a curse to them, 
in that the charges for tonnage and dues and 
tariffs through that ocean canal absorbed nearly 




His Excellency Li Hung Tsee, Chinese Minister to Japan 
1885 to 1888. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 249 

if not all the profits of the export trade of 
China and Japan to Europe. The exports 
of Europe, in exchange for their teas and silks 
and precious wares, to Japan and China by the 
same route, left no margin of profit, save to 
the European merchants. They begged the 
American Minister to assure his government 
that more than anything on earth, except the 
liberal revision of the treaties, the Orient 
wanted a freer and cheaper and quicker transit 
from sea to sea with the United States ; that 
while the United States was a country of vast 
resources and fabulous wealth, then having 
surplus millions in the treasury ; and while 
acknowledging their inferiority in wealth and 
power, they authorized us to say to our 
government (as we did to Mr. Secretary 
Blaine on our return) that if the United States 
would build this ship canal, these designated 
nations would cash the bonds of our govern- 



250 THE VNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

ment for one hundred and fifty millions of gold 
at par, charging only two per cent, annually for 
fifty or a hundred years, payable at Washing- 
ton or the Bank of England. 

Of course this conference was intended only 
as a "memorandum" for future diplomatic 
action of the Oriental Powers of Japan and 
China, and was so conveyed to Mr. Secretary 
Blaine in 1890. 

It was with absorbing interest and pride as 
an American citizen that we listened to the 
grievances of these old nations, laid at the feet 
of the Republic of the West. They saw, even 
then, the currents of the Occidental and 
Oriental trade changing their course across 
the seas. Not only were they compelled, like 
"dumb driven cattle," to submit to the tolls 
and exactions of the "Suez canal," but being 
then silver countries, they were compelled to 
pay exorbitant rates of exchange between 
Japan's and China's silver and Europe's gold. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 251 

Thus spoke Minister Okuma, Japan's great 
financier, one day at the Japanese Foreign 
Office, to the American Minister : 

" We must have this ocean transit at Nicaraugua. 
Japan and China and Corea must have Amer- 
ican raw cotton and American iron and oils and 
other products in exchange for our teas and silks 
and coffee and sulphur and bronze and precious 
wares. Our people are adepts at manufacturing. 
In the great silk factories and in the delicate hand- 
work, whether with the spindle or the loom, or in 
tapestry or weaving, they have been schooled for 
centuries, and their ' skilled labor ' is ready for your 
cotton. If this canal is built by your government, 
we will buy three millions of bales of your best 
American cotton the first year after it is completed, 
paying two cents per pound in gold more than Eng- 
land or Europe pays for the same grade, and for 
every third year thereafter, will double that demand 
until a decade has passed. These two nations 
alone, Japan and China, not to speak of India and 
Corea, for the consumption by their five hundred 
million of people in twenty years, on these condi- 
tions, can use thirty million bales of American cot- 
ton. There is no staple in all the world like your 
staple. But few beds of iron ore exist in China or 



252 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

Japan or Corea. We want American iron to com. 
pete with English iron and the iron of north Eu- 
rope. The people of the East intend some day to 
build more railroads through all their countries. 
Japan now has 5,000 miles and wants 15,000; and 
China must have many thousand miles where she 
has not one to-day. With a salvage of twelve thou- 
sand or more miles in the ' round haul ' — ocean 
transit via Nicaraugua, they could buy your Amer- 
ican cotton and wool and iron and grain at higher 
prices than they pay to Europe or the Continent, 
and the Orient would still reap larger returns and 
profits in the exchange trade." 

What a splendid future opens up to the 
South and West especially ; and to the entire 
Republic generally in thus securing the " lion's 
share " of the vast trade of the Orient. It has 
not been a year since Li Hung Chang (now 
with his " peacock feathers " removed in dis- 
grace ; but then the great Chinese " power be- 
hind the throne," as he will be again) stated 
on his visit to the United States that the 
war with Japan had opened the eyes as well as 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 253 

the exchequer of the " Middle Kingdom," that 
China must awake from the sleep of ages ; that 
Japan had already awakened her ; that China's 
only hope was to adopt western civilization in 
peace and her terrible enginery in war, and con- 
nect all portions of her great Empire by rail- 
way. With a ship canal at Nicaraugua, China 
would come to America, to Pittsburg and Vir- 
ginia and Tennessee and Alabama and Geor- 
gia and to Texas for the iron to build three 
hundred and fifty thousand miles of railway, 
which China intends to build in the coming 
decade. Japan built her first railways in Yesso, 
of American iron, and by American engineers. 
To-day our locomotives and stationary engines, 
and railway coaches are the best that can be 
bought, and in construction the United States 
leads England, Germany, and all continental 
Europe. These are from the official reports of 
our merchants and of our consuls at foreign 

21 



254 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

ports. We are no dreamers. All the world 
knows that commerce is as cold and greedy as 
Shylock on the Rialto. Commerce goes by 
sea and land to where its wants and necessities 
are supplied at the lowest figures, and where 
it sells its goods and wares to the highest 
bidder. With the building of this great work, 
there will come a day when the mine and the 
mill and the factory in America will never close 
from strikes for higher waees, or be shut down 
by owners for want of a profitable market. It 
will bring China and Japan face to face with 
America in the future exchange of a rich and 
almost fabulous commerce. When the ships 
of 500 millions of Oriental people can cross 
from Shanghai and Hong Kong and Kobe 
and Yokohama, without change of bulk to San 
Francisco and Galveston, and New Orleans 
and Mobile, and Savannah and Charleston, and 
Baltimore and Boston, and Philadelphia and 




Pagoda. Tennonji Osaka. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 255 

New York, seeking our cotton and iron and 
grains and all other products in exchange for 
their wares and silks and teas, then, indeed, a 
golden millennium will have dawned on the 
commercial life of this country and of the 
Orient. We speak whereof we know, when 
we say that it is cheaper this day for the poor 
native Japanese or Chinese to wear silk than 
American or European cotton or woolen 
goods ; and hence they wear it. When a 
reciprocity of trade shall have been inaugu- 
rated between these lands and our own, as it 
will be some day, then the exchange, the barter 
and trade between their silks and teas and 
copper and sulphur and precious wares, and 
our cotton (then to be increased to a crop of 
thirty million bales instead of ten), and our 
inexhaustible iron mines and the golden grain 
and the meat stuffs of the mighty West, will 
mark a new era of prosperity to the United 



256 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

States. We shall, even in our day, see the 
manufactured silks of Japan and China, and 
their teas and wares, within the reach of the 
poorest of our people, and the peasant girl 
able to wear a silken gown on her wedding 
day. Our cotton, in exchange for their silks, 
our iron for their wares, our grains for their 
copper and sulphur and curios, will fix the 
reciprocal exchange without duty imposed to 
either land. This was the dream of that 
typical and great American Secretary, James 
G. Blaine. He was for reciprocal treaties with 
all countries, where the conditions authorized 
them. It would build up the volume of our 
trade and bring prosperity alike to the 
American producer, consumer, and manufac- 
turer. It would restore the equilibrium of trade, 
and cover the Pacific ocean with the white sails 
of our merchant marine. It would give us the 
long-sought supremacy on the Atlantic also, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 257 

where two-thirds of our products are now 
carried in foreign ships. 

Our " mother country," of whose ancestral 
blood and traditions all Americans are proud, 
and whose exhibition of sympathy and love has 
in the late war with Spain received knightly 
response from the people on this side of the 
Atlantic, is nevertheless our rival in the marts 
of the world's trade. In their ships floats the 
major part of America's commerce to Liverpool 
and London and continental ports, and nearly 
all the carriers of the Pacific are British ships 
bearing the "lion's flag." This must not be ! 
This ship canal is the key to the situation ; the 
solution of the problem of America's success- 
ful recovery of her lost carrying trade lies in 
the completion of this ocean transit at Nica- 
raugua. This transit will regulate the prices 
of all our products, at home and abroad. 
England, every night in the exchanges of Lon- 



258 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

don and in the Bank of England, fixes the 
prices of cotton and silver and gold and 
grain and iron all around the globe. When 
the Nicaraugua canal's ship transit is com- 
pleted, England will, as heretofore, flash her 
cablegrams, saying to New York and New 
Orleans and Galveston and Savannah and 
Charleston, " Give to-morrow six cents per 
pound for the best grades of American cot- 
ton." From Yokohama and Kobe and Shang- 
hai will come back the response, " We will 
pay eight cents per pound for the best grades 
of American cotton." The sportsman of the 
West who sang of "The Heathen Chinee" in 
his own provincial and " professional " par- 
lance, would say, " Japan 'sees' England's 
bid, and ' goes two cents better ' and calls her 
hand." 

In our voyage across the Pacific, in 1885, to 
Japan, we saw but one four-masted schooner 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 259 

bearing the Stars and Stripes (we met no other) 
during that tedious ocean transit of nearly six 
thousand miles. We received salutes, and re- 
turned them, from numbers of the merchant 
marine ships of Great Britain, and from Spain 
and France and Germany. That solitary 
American vessel we met on the highway 
looked like an orphan exile wandering over 
the seas. This * lost supremacy we will restore 
when this great ship channel shall unite the 
oceans, and enable the Far East to shake 
hands face to face with the Great West, free 
from the dominations of the " middle men " of 
European nations. The tridents of the middle 
men have ruled the waves and the ships that 
float on them, and their magic wands have 
transformed all the wage-workers of the sun- 
rise nations into "hewers of wood and drawers 
of water " for the European Powers and for the 
banks and the bourses and exchanges from the 



260 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Thames to the Bosphorus, and from Berlin to 
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The 
United States half a century ago was the mis- 
tress of the world's commercial marine, led by 
our then great " clipper" ships. This transit 
will bring back the lost prosperity of long ago. 
The patriotic but mistaken laws for pro- 
tecting and fostering a navy and merchant 
ships, making American ship-yards the fruitful 
nurseries of fighting tars and peaceful sailors, 
enacted that no American flag should float over 
any ship (it mattered not whose money built 
it), unless every part of the vessel was built in 
American ship-yards and by American labor. 
The practical result was that American gold 
and shipping interests went to the Mersey or 
the Clyde and had their ships built for about 
half the money that it would cost them at 
home. All right in theory, but bad and alarm- 
ing in practice. It lost us the supremacy of 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 261 

the seas in peaceful commerce. England this 
day carries in her bottoms, as noted heretofore, 
two-thirds of our exports and imports to and 
from foreign lands. 

As a military desideratum, no statesman can 
hesitate since the object-lesson was given of 
the world's greatest battleship, our own 
"Oregon," sailing over 15,000 miles around 
the "Horn" to reach Cuban waters, in time of 
war. With that ocean ship transit, that splendid 
war ship could have made the passage from the 
" Golden Gate," via the canal to the West 
Indian waters, in less than twenty days. 

In all these achievements, Japan and the 
Orient are far more deeply interested than any 
European Power. The author does not mean 
to indulge in invidious comparisons, much less 
impugn the motives of the friendly nations of 
Europe, but we may venture the opinion and 
the prediction that should, by untoward fate, 



262 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

this great canal and transit fail to be con- 
structed, we would listen in vain for any notes 
of grief or lamentations from England or the 
Continent. They would possibly not "mock 
at our calamity," but would be serenely recon- 
ciled to America's misfortune. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE SHIP TRANSIT IN ITS RELATIONS TO SOUTH 
AMERICAN AS WELL AS JAPANESE TRADE. 




.SIDE from the magnificent Ori- 
ental commerce, which the ocean 
transit will pour into our deep 
sea harbors on the Pacific, the Gulf, and the 
Atlantic, the influence will be ever widening, 
bearing on its changed currents a vast volume 
of the trade of South as well as North America, 
and particularly from its western coasts. The 
opportunity of the closing century is at our 
doors. The United States has too long folded 
its tents, and like the Arabs, laid down to 
pleasant dreams, in fancied commercial security. 
With catholic and commercial amity with all 
nations, our country should remember the 

[263] 



264 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

legend of the " Trojan Horse " in classic story. 
We have, by relying on and boasting of our 
natural advantages, imagined that we- were 
masters of the situation for all time to come. 
We have supinely allowed Europe and the 
" mother country," leading their merchant 
marine, to come to our very doors and bear 
away the traffic of half a continent on our 
southward and of our sister republics. The 
36,000,000 of people of South America buy an- 
nually, from foreign countries, goods to the 
value in gold of $376,000,000, while the United 
States (the treasury department is our authority 
for the humiliating confession) sells to South 
America only $33,000,000. The five Central 
American States have a population of only 
35,000,000, yet they buy foreign goods valued 
at $23,000,000 annually, while of that amount 
the United States furnishes only $5,320,000. 
The West Indies, outside of Porto Rico and 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 265 

Cuba, purchase about $45,000,000 worth of 
goods, of which this country furnishes only 
$15,000,000. A ship transit across Nicaraugua 
will make our Republic the common carrier of 
that portion of the South American trade (of 
its western ports) that must and will seek transit 
through this ship channel to the " Far East." 
In all this great revolution that is to be, Japan 
and China, and other Oriental nations are 
greatly interested. 

In connection with the future development of 
our trade with Japan, recent events have 
tended to bind that island Empire and our 
Republic with yet stronger cords of friendship, 
that will not be broken in peace or in war. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE CHINESE WAR. 



N the war with China, if never 
before, Japan learned how earn- 
Wrliife?! estiy to appreciate the fidelity 
and the unselfish devotion of the United States 
to promise and principle, as compared with 
European diplomacy. We have never de- 
ceived Japan, never played the role of Talley- 
rand in her courts. That war with China was 
a just war, waged not for conquest, as the 
sequel showed, but honor, and because of 
violated treaties. 

We have heretofore adverted to Japan's 
quarrels with China and Corea, and to the late 
troubles over Loo Choo and Formosa, which 
General Grant settled as an umpire. In the 

[266] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 267 

seventies (1876) the " Treaty of Tintsen " was 
negotiated between China and Japan. For 
centuries China had claimed to exercise what 
publicists called "suzerainty" over Corea to 
the exclusion of all other Powers. Annually 
the tribute of Corea to China was borne to 
Pekin. Japan protested against the exercise of 
this unlawful power. She reminded China that 
centuries past she had, with her legions 
following her Joan of Arc of the East, con- 
quered Corea, and even in that "darker age" 
showed mercy to the vanquished. Corea had 
also protested against the hectoring domination 
of China. 

Strained diplomatic relations arose with the 
passing of the years, until the great " Middle 
Kingdom" began to threaten Corea with in- 
vasion unless she diverted her trade from 
Japan. Out of these quarrels came the Treaty 
of Tintsen. Among other provisions of that 



268 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

convention, negotiated by two of the most 
eminent statesmen of both Empires (Marquis 
Ito for Japan, and Li Hung Chang for China), 
was a provision that the " favored-nation clause " 
should be enforced as to commerce, and that 
in enforcing it, or for any political cause, neither 
China nor Japan should send armed troops to 
Corea without due notice to and consent of the 
other Power. To this Convention all three of 
the nations interested became parties in solemn 
form. 

It may be remarked, in passing, that China, 
seeing that Japan was obtaining most of the 
trade of Corea, became jealous of her island 
neighbor, on whom that Power of 500,000,000 
looked down with contempt, supposing that, 
before her armies and navy, Japan would be 
swept into the sea. China made up a diplo- 
matic "man of straw" as an excuse for in- 
vading Corea and " regulating" her trade and 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 269 

custom duties. Japan remonstrated against 
this violation of her treaties, and informed 
China that a repetition of this outrage would 
be a cause of war, and demanded apology for 
the recent demonstration. Without deigning 
to make reply, China sent ships with soldiers, 
under convoy, bound for Corea. The world 
now knows the result. Japanese war ships fired 
upon these transports and convoys, and sank 
them, men and ships, to the bottom of the sea. 
Thus it was that the recent memorable war 
began between China and Japan. It was then 
that Japan's education in the arts of peace and 
war, drawn from the Occident, bore fruit. Her 
army and navy was fully panoplied for war, and 
Japan was ready for the conflict. Thus armed, 
and having her " quarrel just," Japan was even 
eager, because ready, for the conflict at the 
very hour of the declaration of war. Her 
mobilization of soldiers and sailors ; her com- 



270 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

missary well supplied ; her quartermaster s 
department moving like clock work, Japan's 
infantry and artillery and cavalry were convoyed 
to ports of Corea. Corea was silenced and 
made the base of land operations by the 
Japanese "army of occupation." Thence her 
army moved, crossing the border line of China 
and Corea, and entered the territory of the 
enemy. Reckoning from the beginning that 
Japan would never dare to invade that mighty 
kingdom, this old dynasty slept while the 
enemy was compassing her destruction by land 
and sea. 

American and German officers, who by 
courtesy were the guests of both armies, have 
described to us, in serious humor, the army and 
navy of China. Her soldiers were vivid repro- 
ductions of Falstaft's "ragged regiments " on 
the stage ; and their native officers burlesques 
on soldierly bearing as much as was Shake- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 271 

speare's obese commander of " King Henry." 
China, therefore, at the first thunder of the 
guns of Japan fled, their officers leading in the 
flight 

In this triumphal invasion by an enemy who 
had come over the ocean for 1500 miles and 
hundreds of leagues of land via Corea, there 
was no really great engagement in the open 
field, and but two assaults on forts on the sea 
(Port Arthur and Yalu) which were resisted 
by the Chinese. Yet while these battles lasted, 
they were bloody ; the losses of China in killed 
and wounded exceeding, by seventy-five per 
cent., those of the Japanese armies of invasion. 
Not one instance of cowardly or unsoldierly 
conduct in battle was reported of an officer or 
soldier of Japan. The Chinese army, if such 
it may be called, fled by battalions and regi- 
ments, scattered all the way from the coast to 
Peking. The triumph of the army of Japan 



272 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

astonished the nations of the earth, but none 
more than England, whose proud boast for 
centuries had been, that : 

" Her march was on the mountain wave, 
Her home was on the deep." 

Great warships like the " Nanniwa Kan " 
were handled as if American sailors or British 
tars were behind the guns. Those swift and 
terrible conflicts sent to the bottom of the sea 
the mightiest ships of China's navy (and they 
were the equals of those of Japan), and com- 
pelled the unconditional surrender of nearly all 
the remainder of a once splendid squadron, 
and all of the destroyed forts became the lawful 
prizes of Japan. Japan waged a humane and 
civilized war. On the fields of battle her 
humanity hovered like an angel of mercy over 
the enemies and around the dying, and gave 
burial to the dead. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



JAPAN WAGES A HUMANE WAR. 




\?NCE on a time, and only once, 
* i the rear guards of the Japanese 
&&&±4&£' armies discovered that some hun- 
dreds of their wounded countrymen had been 
butchered and mutilated by the brutal Chinese 
soldiers. 

The famous war correspondents of the Asso- 
ciated Press of that time, record the fact " that 
in an instant, at the sight of those inhuman 
murders, Japan's soldiers inflicted the lex tal- 
ionis — an eye for an eye, life for life — on the 
first Chinese soldiers they met." But it was a 
moment's bloody work. The officers of the 
line arrested and punished those Japanese sol- 
diers and had read on all parades a general 

£273] 



274 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

order reciting the disgrace they thus put upon 
the fame of Japan in civilized warfare. Never- 
theless, there was no blot on the fair military 
escutcheon of Japan in that war. Such is the 
record. China surrenders at discretion. Li 
Hung Chang was sent to Nagoshimo, as Envoy 
Extraordinary, to treat and sue for peace. 
Marquis Ito, the Japanese Premier, represented 
his Empire. We need not enter into the 
details of that memorable meeting. A treaty 
of peace was consummated. After acknowledg- 
ing their utter defeat, and that their surrender 
in time saved the ancient capital of Peking, they 
promised, among other stipulations, substan- 
tially as follows : 

1st. That in consideration of indemnity for ex- 
penses incurred in the war and security against its 
recurrence in the future, China should cede uncon- 
ditionally all her right, title, and domain to Port 
Arthur and the Yalu, and such inland boundaries 
as Japan should elect. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 275 

2nd. That the island of Formosa should likewise 
be ceded unconditionally to Japan. 

3rd. That the sum of $250,000,000 in gold should 
be paid in installments by China to Japan, limiting 
the last payment to the year 1 897, as money indem- 
nity for the war. 

Other provisions were re-enacted of old trea- 
ties exacting the "favored nation clause" in all 
their future commercial and tariff relations. 

The announcement of these conditions to Li 
Hung Chang made a thrilling scene, as recited 
to us by those who had access to the court. 
That now temporarily deposed prince, Li Hung 
Chang, whom General Grant said was "one of 
the three great men whom he met in the Old 
World," on rising, with hands uplifted, thanked 
Japan for her mercy and gentleness and for- 
bearance to a conquered power. The treaty 
was signed by Li Hung Chang and by the 
Emperor of Japan and Marquis Ito, the then 
great Premier of the conquering power. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



INTERVENTION. 



©'""NO 

W^TT* VfHERE then stalk upon the stage — 
& J not the mimic, but the real and 

&^±&£&) tragic stage of nations — other 
actors in the after-play. It was Russia, with 
France on one side and Germany (a strange 
alliance) on the other side, as seconds and 
sponsors. Japan was told, plainly but diplo- 
matically, by Russia, that she should yield back 
to China Port Arthur and the mouth of the 
Yalu ; that Formosa and the 250,000,000 of 
money demanded and conceded in the treaty 
was low and liberal to China, but that Russia 
had but one outlet port on the Chinese seas 
(Vlavidivostoc), and that was closed by ice one- 
half of the year ; that the three great Powers, 

[276] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 277 

Russia taking the lead, must request, peace- 
fully if she could, that Japan should renounce 
the possession of the recent cession to her of 
Port Arthur and Yalu by China ; that the de- 
mands of Russia's commerce and self-existence 
in the East demanded this renouncement. 

The dramatic scene, as related to the author, 
which followed this demand by these great 
Christian Powers, was worthy of the days of 
knighthood. The Premier Ito, of Japan, speak- 
ing for his Emperor and for the forty millions 
of his subjects, and for the sailors and soldiers 
who had won in a civilized war one of the 
greatest triumphs of the century, asked the 
Russian Plenipotentiary, in substance, as fol- 
lows : 

1st. If Japan had not fairly waged and won the 
victory over vast odds? 

2d. If Japan had not made terms more humane 
and liberal than ever before characterized any con- 
quering nation in all the annals of war? 



278 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

3d. If all the Treaty Powers did not stand aloof 
and promise non-interference and neutrality be- 
tween China and Japan during that war? 

In further response, Japan arraigned Russia 
and her allies by asking other questions : 

Did not Russia, in her dismemberment of Poland, 
and in her conquest of Siberia without just cause, 
in the name of " indemnity," appropriate every 
foot of that vast region stretching across Asia to 
Vlavidivostoc on the Sea of China? Did not 
Russia's ally, Germany, in the Franco-Prussian 
war, for " indemnity " charge the conquered nations 
a billion of dollars and seize the fairest of her 
possessions, Alsace and Lorraine? Did not France 
seize Annam of this same old China and exact 
money and concessions? And has not England, 
who is our friend in this contention, encircled the 
globe with islands and semi-continents as the 
trophies of conquest? And did she not, in the 
"Opium War" forced on China, charge her a 
billion of thalers, and seize Hongkong and all the 
island and the free navigation of the greatest in- 
land river connecting Canton with the sea, and all 
for " indemnity ? " And yet your so-called " Chris- 
tian " Powers deny to Japan a triumph and treaty 
concession justly earned by her unstained sword! 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 279 

A half century ago you sent missionaries bearing 
a new and to us strange religion of peace and good- 
will to men, teaching us to " do unto others as ye 
would they should do unto you ! " Japan, though 
not Christian, welcomed them in tolerant spirit as 
well as in treaties by which they were directly pro- 
tected. And yet the very first opportunity your 
Powers have had to verify in act, instead of words, 
this Christian rule, you crucify it, and Japan is the 
victim. 

Nevertheless, the reply (we give the sub- 
stance only of that eventful meeting as ob- 
tained from authentic sources) of Russia to 
to Japan was, "You have our ultimatum." 

No more ungracious and coldly selfish treat- 
ment ever marred the councils of diplomacy; 
much less the intercourse of friendly Treaty 
Powers. 

It is unwritten history that Japan offered the 
"wager of battle " with Russia alone, if her 
powerful allies would only stand aside from 
this single contest. 



280 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

The sequel beholds Japan yielding to superior 
force, ''might making right" as of old, in the 
eternal struggle of the strong against the weak. 
She gave back Port Arthur and the Yalu to 
China, and to-day Russia is virtually the pos- 
sessor of both these former justly won trophies 
of Japan's conquest of China. Into this con- 
spiracy the United States, Great Britain, 
Austria-Hungary, Italy and Spain did not 
enter, be it said to their everlasting credit as 
Christian nations. 

Japan might have invoked American history 
in the war with our neighboring Republic of 
Mexico, in that unequal contest, about whose 
justice great political parties differed at the 
time. Mexico, of course, went down, crushed 
in defeat. The doctrine of " indemnity for the 
past and security for the future " was applied 
to Mexico, and the result was that we took in 
compensation every foot of land which was 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 281 

owned by Mexico, between the Rio Grande 
and the sunset, out of which the territories of 
Arizona, New Mexico and golden California 
have been carved, and now form a part of the 
American Union. 

No more cruel blow could have been given 
to Christian missions and western influence in 
the Far East, than the hectoring and bullying 
by mighty Christian nations over weaker Japan. 
But for the refusal of England and the United 
States and the other Powers mentioned, to join 
in this " stand and deliver" demand, Christi- 
anity would have retrograded half a century in 
the lost confidence of the pagans in the profes- 
sions of the Christian. 

Japan yielded and renounced Port Arthur 
and the Yalu ; but spurned the unthanked 
suggestion of Russia to claim of China other 
equivalent in gold in place of Port Arthur and 
the Yalu. 

23 



CHAPTER XXVII. 




THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

HE author does not propose to 
discuss the Hispano-American 
war, except in its relations to the 
possible aftermath with Japan and the Orient 
and the United States. Adopting the senti- 
ment now historic, " our country, may it always 
be in the right ; but, right or wrong, our coun- 
try," we have no apologies or defenses to make 
about the "casus belli" on the trophies of 
victory on sea and shore, over the ancient and 
weaker power of Spain. It is past ! We listen 
to the thunder of Dewey's guns in the East 
and the echo of Schley's and Sampson's battle- 
ships in the West; squadrons sunk into the seas, 
and fair islands stained with the blood of the 

[282] 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 283 

Spanish soldiers and of our own, as we shall 
read the record over again and again in story 
and song. 

Whether the great Republic shall " expand " 
till Manila and Porto Rico and Cuba are ours 
in fact, and not in name, is not the main ques- 
tion we propose to discuss in this closing 
recital of eventful scenes in our recent history. 
We cannot close our eyes nor our ears, how- 
ever, to the fact that the war with Spain 
furnished the glad opportunity to two great 
Powers, one of the East and one of the West — 
England and Japan — to manifest their unselfish 
friendship for our country, at a time when 
Russia and Germany and France and Austria 
were seemingly seeking to form an alliance, 
offensive and defensive, against the United 
States, to demand that the war with Spain 
should cease. 

Our kindred of Albion, in press and pulpit, 



284 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

in the Houses of Lords and Commons, in the 
army and navy, in distant lands and on distant 
seas, gave the United States to understand that 
England was ours to command, in our day of 
trial, if unfriendly alliances should bear down 
against us. Thus were our ancestral kith and 
kin forgetting the troubles of the past. 

But Japan was not our kindred save in the 
kinship of the brotherhood of man, and that 
responsive "touch of human kindness that 
makes the whole world kin." We had been 
her friend for fifty years ; and when the nations 
who had threatened and robbed her of the 
fruits of honest war with China were seemingly 
allying against her ancient and trusted friend 
of the West, then it was that Japan was our 
friend, both in the secret sessions of her own 
cabinet and in the cabinet at Washington. 
The world believes that, in the event of an 
alliance of Powers against the United States, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 285 

England and Japan would have come to our 
aid. Dewey's immortal victory at Manila, and 
Schley's equally splendid victory at Santiago, 
and the triumph of Miles and Wheeler and 
Shafter and Roosevelt and Brooke and Wil- 
son and Merritt and Lawton and Otis, and 
others equally as brave and heroic on land, 
dazed all envious nations, and they cried 
"Halt!" along the lines, and the world was 
saved from the bloodiest war of the age. 

We should be ingrates, indeed, were we not, 
in council, in the forum, and in high places, in 
press and pulpit, and, above all, in truthful 
history, to make grateful acknowledgment of 
the generous friendship that, despising the 
"white lies " of diplomacy, was ready to prove 
the sincerity of proffered succor in our appeal 
to arms, and if need be, by the thunder of their 
guns on land and sea. The traditions of our 
Republic do not favor " entangling alliances " 



286 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

with foreign Powers ; but we are a century 
removed from the natal day of our country. 
In great struggles for the right, forced on us in 
behalf of humanity, whether in the West or in 
the East, this country of seventy millions of 
people is no longer a "pent-up Utica," and 
must signalize her victories by giving better 
governments and more enlightened constitu- 
tional liberties where despotism and political in- 
quisitions have cursed the people for centuries. 
For mere conquest or for booty, never, but for 
liberty and humanity — when we are forced to 
war with the oppressor anywhere and every- 
where under the sun — our country should pro- 
tect the fruits' of victory from the greedy lust 
of other nations for empire, as we have de- 
livered these oppressed subjects from merciless 
despotism. A territorial or colonial watchcare 
should be afforded, at least till their capacity for 
self-government has been demonstrated, and then 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 287 

separate and independent free republican gov- 
ernments for themselves, or annexation, as they 
may give their " consent" or request to the 
great emancipating Republic. 

The Rubicon was passed, and the bridges 
burned behind us, when, by the solemn act of 
Congress, war was declared against Spain. In 
the declaration there was no offensive partisan- 
ship exhibited and no faltering in the quick- 
step of the legions of armed men from all the 
States rallying to the call of their country. 
Henceforth, till the short, sharp, and decisive 
conflict forced the old Dynasty of the Dons to 
sue for peace, there was no bickering in the 
National Legislature about the righteousness 
of the declaration of war, albeit against a 
nation as weak as she was vain and haughty, 
and whose tottering throne had in the recent 
centuries lost nearly all its possessions around 
the globe. The Treaty of Paris confirmed the 



288 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

absolute title of the United States, given with- 
out condition by Spain, surrendering, as she 
did, without discretion. This title gave to the 
United States Cuba, the "gem of the Antilles," 
Porto Rico of the West, and the Philippine 
Islands of the Far East, as "indemnity for the 
past and security for the future." Though these 
diplomatic words were not written in the cartels 
of the surrender, the responsibilities of the 
after-math rested upon the victor. These re- 
sponsibilities invoked the spirit and principles 
of the great mission of republican self-govern- 
ment on this continent as the guiding-star of 
our American government. That mission was 
consecrated for more than a century by the 
blood of our fathers and by their stateship 
in counsel and valor in battle, and proclaimed 
to all the world the right of free self-govern- 
ment under written laws and constitutions. 
In the " Golden Rule," which has illustrated our 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 289 

country's history to this time, we have, as a 
Republic, never sought territorial possessions 
by bloody conquests. We have " done unto 
others as we would they should do unto us." 
It was thus in the Louisiana and Florida pur- 
chases, out of which great States have been 
carved, and in that mighty area of territory 
which we acquired from a sister Republic in 
1846. This territory, composed of Spanish- 
speaking people, stretched from the Rio Grande 
to the far Pacific, and from the Gulf to the foot 
of the Rocky Mountains, and made us in deed 
and in truth an ocean-bound Republic. To 
this grand expanse, either as States or terri- 
tories, we gave the same free government as 
blessed the conquering Republic. The United 
States is responsible for her own acts in peace 
and for her own victories in war. This re- 
sponsibility, though not in the written treaties 
defined, or in the acts of Congress, binds us by 



290 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

an unwritten law to give autonomy to Cuba, 
and stable constitutional governments to Porto 
Rico and to the Philippines, when in the judg- 
ment of this country those islands shall become 
capable of self-government, and not till then. 
We should count it a sad day in our history if 
Cuba and Porto Rico and, most of all, the 
Philippines, though possessing vast and rich 
resources, should in a half century to come, 
be admitted as States into this Union ! The 
people are heterogeneous, and largely ignorant 
and barbarian in the interior, as the author 
has witnessed in person. Their idea of lib- 
erty — I speak of the masses — is license, not regu- 
lated by law. Annexation would bring into our 
Congress seventy representatives and a corres- 
ponding number of senators ! What, then, shall 
we do about it ? Turn them loose ? That 
would be to invite the vindictive malice and 
revenge of Spain towards the rebel insurgents. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 291 

Shall we sell them to Europe or to the Orient ? 
That would be receiving "blood-money," and 
shock the spirit of humanity and Christian 
civilization of all the nations of the earth. We 
cannot hold them as colonies, as other nations 
in their lust and greed of conquest are wont to 
do, imposing an iron rule over their peoples as 
slaves ! We are not imperialists — have no 
princes nor dukes nor lords nor royal succession 
of the blood to place over them ; but we should 
be to them as a great Protectorate, keeping 
other nations at bay and leading them into 
higher walks of free government. This should 
be done until they are capable of self-govern- 
ment, and then, and not till then, could we, in 
common humanity, consent to their becoming 
independent Republics in the family of nations. 
If we would have avoided this fearful responsi- 
bility then the declaration of war should never 
have been made, to begin with, and Spain should 



292 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

have been allowed- to continue her rule, giving 
autonomy to Cuba under a treaty which she 
was on the eve of signing. The conditions 
are now different, and these helpless people 
can look to us alone of all the nations of the 
earth for friendly guidance. 



£■ 



* 

o 
-* 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 



JAPAN S MILITARY AND NAVAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN 
THE CHINESE WAR. 




HE latest official reports of the 
Minister for War show that on a 
peace footing, the army of Japan 
consists of 61,976 men, and its war footing of 
2 45>3 IC> men, which the war office declares can 
be raised in emergencies to over one million of 
men in the field. 

The Emperor has an ''Imperial Guard," of 
5,000 carefully selected troops, outside of the 
standing army, who, because of their statue 
and drill and military bearing, constitute the 
esprit du corps of the army of the capital. The 
navy of Japan, in 1894, consisted of three coast 
defense vessels of 4,277 tons displacement each; 

[293] 



294 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

two armored cruisers of 3, 700 and 2,450 tons dis- 
placement, respectively ; six protected cruisers, 
whose average displacement was 3,183 tons 
each ; ten second-class cruisers with average dis- 
placement of 1,547 tons ; hve gun vessels of 614 
tons displacement each ; and one first-class gun 
vessel of 1,350 tons displacement. The speed 
of the coast defense boats and cruisers aver- 
aged seventeen knots per hour, going to nine- 
teen miles and down to fourteen per hour, and 
the vessels were built in England and France 
and Japan. It will be observed that no " bat- 
tleships," or cruisers of great tonnage or dis- 
placement are found in this list. 

This naval armament confronted that of 
China, and sank or captured it in the most 
remarkable naval victory of half a century pre- 
ceding that event. China had two formidable 
battleships of 7,430 tons displacement each ; 
but her navy was inferior to Japan's in aggre- 
gate tonnage and displacement by 13,000 tons. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 295 

As recited in a preceding chapter, without 
entering into details, China, while notifying 
Japan that she intended sending troops to 
Corea to suppress a rebellion at the latter' s 
request, as a matter of fact, had already sent 
over two thousand troops in violation of the 
Treaty of Tintsen. Japan, on the 7th of June, 
1894, formally notified China that she would 
immediately send a portion of her army to 
protect Japanese subjects resident in Corea. 
Japan later on sent five hundred troops from 
her war ships at Chemulio, post-haste to the 
Corean capital at Souel. Afterwards she sent 
5,000 more. China then demanded the " instant 
withdrawal " of Japanese troops. The demand 
was peremptorily refused. China again sent 
transports of troops, convoyed by war ships, 
which Japan attacked with her ships, destroy- 
ing most of the transports and war ships of 

China. And thus the war was inaugurated. 
24 



296 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

The fleet of Japan consisted of five squadrons, 
and the army of six divisions, of 9,000 each ; 
and besides these were three divisions of the 
"Imperial Guard," increased to 6,000 men in 
each division, making a total of 72,000 men. 
The so-called army of China, which we have 
heretofore appropriately, but kindly compared 
to Falstaft's ragged soldiery, was composed of 
one million men. Only about 180,000 of this 
million had arms of modern type ; while the 
other 820,000 had arms of various styles, some 
of them more than a century old ; and their 
equipment, of all sorts and sizes, had been 
discarded for generations by the great military 
powers of the world. Under such conditions, 
though a nation of 500,000,000 confronted one 
of 40,000,000, it is not marvelous that by land 
and sea the "Great Middle Kingdom" was 
crushed in ignoble defeat. It was the sword- 
fish battling with the whale ; the alertness, 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 297 

activity, courage, and drill of Japan, against 
the unwieldy stupidity of the army of China. 
The treaty of Peace was duly negotiated and 
signed on April 17, 1895, and ratifications 
exchanged on May 8, 1895. The protests of 
Russia, France, and Germany, already referred 
to, against the retention of Tieng-tsen and Port 
Arthur had a first and an after part to the play. 
It was the sensational diplomatic gossip of the 
time in all the Foreign Legations .of China and 
Japan, that the demand of the three great west- 
ern Powers, and the response of Japan were 
characterized by high and heated discussions. 
The author has given the substance of these 
purported contentions as received from sources 
which he regards as of unquestionable and emi- 
nent authority. The official imperial rescript, 
however, of June 10, 1895, by the Japanese 
Government, while reciting the cold facts, 
glosses over that surrender to Russia in the 



298 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

following extract from an official State paper, 
to-wit : 

" Since then, the governments of their Majesties, 
the Emperors of Russia and Germany, and of the 
Republic of France, have united in a recommenda- 
tion to our government not to permanently possess 
the peninsula of Tieng-tsen, our duly acquired ter- 
ritory, on the ground that such permanent posses- 
sion would be detrimental to the lasting peace of 
the Orient. Devoted as we unalterably are, and ever 
have been, to the principles of peace, we were con- 
strained to take up arms against China for no other 
reason than our desire to secure for the Orient an 
enduring peace. Now, the friendly recommenda- 
tion of the three great Powers was equally promo- 
ted by the same desire. Consulting, therefore, the 
best interests of peace, and animated by a desire 
not to bring upon our people added hardship or to 
impede the progress of national destiny by creating 
new complications, and thereby making the situa- 
tion difficult, and retarding the restoration of peace, 
we do not hesitate to accept such recommendation." 

Thus ended the play in two acts ; the first a 
tragedy, and the last a comedy. The treaty of 
peace had been ratified by both China and 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 299 

Japan thirty days before this so-called friendly 
(?) recommendation had been accepted. It 
was "right" yielding to "might." The grace- 
ful submission to the inevitable was what 
Japanese diplomats for ages have called "jieu- 
jet-su," or "yielding to conquer." 

This act of Japan won the sympathy of the 
civilized world, outside of the three great 
powers designated ; and thus the loss of that 
day may give victories in the future far more 
valued than the possession of a peninsula or a 
port which had been fairly won in a just, 
humane, and civilized war. 

Our design is not to write a history of the 
China-Japanese war, and we have only touched 
the headlands of that conflict. We cannot 
close this chapter, however, without paying 
tribute to the gallant officers and men of the 
army and navy of Japan, most of whom we knew 
in person, who crowned their soldierly qualities 



300 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

with fadeless laurels. Yamagata and Oyama 
and Oshima and Nodzu, were the leaders on 
land, and Ito and Tsuboi, with others, were the 
great admirals of the warships on the sea. 
Their trophies in war, and the no less brilliant 
civic triumphs of Ito and Inouye, and Okuma 
and Mutsu, and Aoki, and Kurodo and Saigo, 
and Yamada and Matsukata in the cabinet, 
from this time forth advanced Japan to the 
front and abreast with the great military powers 
of the earth. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE HOME LIFE OF JAPAN THE MARRIED RELA- 
TIONS DOOM OF POLYGAMY. 




HE author's good fortune has led 
him into many countries of the 
Orient and of the Occident. His 
present unbiased, though at first prejudiced, 
judgment of the home life of Japan, compels 
him to acknowledge, that for the great car- 
dinal virtues of loyalty and paternal and 
maternal and filial devotion, no homes on this 
earth surpass the Japanese. We mean that 
love of the child for the parent, which coupled 
with obedience and gratitude, never grows cold 
from childhood to age. The converse is 
equally as true in the love of the parent for the 
child. The married life is not hedged in, it is 

[3011 



302 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

true, by the same vows and divine and human 
laws that guard that most sacred of all domestic 
relations in Christian lands. While that is 
acknowledged, yet, by the fruits borne of their 
domestic relations, we know, amid pagan 
idolatries even, that they have made their 
homes, from the prince to the coolie, united 
and happy. 

From the day when the little ones leave 
their " armah " (or nurse), every artifice that 
genius or love can devise is directed to the 
diversions and amusement and happiness of 
the children. The countless toys which to-day, 
and for years, make joyous the holidays of our 
loved ones of the West and especially in times 
of the "Christmas carols," and of "Santa 
Claus," come mostly from Japan. It must be 
stated that for ages, not as preached by Buddha 
or by Confucius, but as permitted by a sort of 
unwritten law, polygamy has been allowed by 













l A7irnohs ' ' (or Nurses) carrying Children. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 303 

r 

the State ; yet it is doomed. To the revolu- 
tions which western Christian civilization has 
wrought by statesmen, as well as by the heralds 
of the cross, this fast approaching dissolution 
of polygamy may be largely attributed. Even 
now, there can be but one wife in Japan 
through whom the legal inheritance of titles 
and property and name can descend, and only 
when this legal wife is childless, can the right 
descend to the children of the next-, or addi- 
tional, wife of the lord of the household. 
Polygamy, as it exists in Japan to-day, is more 
nominal than real. No subject can marry more 
than one wife, unless he offers to the State 
absolute proof of his financial ability to main- 
tain the added wife and her children in a sepa- 
rate home (a promise well timed in any land, 
pagan or Christian), and to educate the chil- 
dren in the same degree as those of the first 
wife. The result is there is but little ille^iti- 



304 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

macy as compared with many, even Christian 
countries. The punishments for the violation 
of the Christian's "Seventh Commandment" 
not only is swift and sharp, but it carries dis- 
grace for all after generations. Centuries ago 
infidelity of the wife was punished by death. 
The following utterances from a recent speech 
of the most eminent philosopher and editor of 
Japan — Fuji Sawa — delivered before the great 
school which he founded, sounds the death- 
knell of polygamy: 

"All the human family came from one pair, a 
man and a woman, who were created by heaven ; 
then came the conditions of parents and children ; 
of brothers and sisters, which are to continue 
through all time. Heaven made no difference be- 
tween man and woman in regard to freedom, but 
intended them to be equal. In looking at the 
history of China and Japan from the earliest times, 
we find that men often had several wives, whom 
they treated like slaves or criminals, and the 
husbands were not ashamed of their conduct. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 305 

Was not this wicked on the part of the man and 
most pitiable for the women ? When men thus treat 
their wives, the example has an evil effect on their 
children, and they do not treat their mothers with 
respect nor listen to their instructions. When this 
is the case with the mother, the children are no 
better off than orphans. The famous Confucius, in 
his analects, says that there should be one husband 
and one wife ; and, while the modern Chinese and 
Japanese believe this to be right, they do not 
always act upon his advice. Most certainly there 
should be one pair only, and between the husband 
and wife there should always be true friendship, 
love, and courtesy. When men have a plurality of 
wives, the children, as a whole, have one father and 
several mothers; and the laws of Confucius, as well 
as of nature, are disobeyed. If it is right for one 
man to have several wives, then why not allow one 
woman to have several husbands ? As to our chil- 
dren they are the gifts of heaven, and should be 
loved and valued for that reason alone. They 
should be good and beautiful to their parents. 
The government is always ready to help those 
who treat their parents kindly, but the children 
must never do this from interested or sinister mo- 
tives. When old enough to attend schools they 
should be sent to those appropriate to their station, 



306 TEE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

and they should strive to become useful members 
of society. All these, things should be done by 
parents as a return to heaven for blessing them 
with children." 



CHAPTER XXX. 



JAPAN, AND COLONIZATION BY THE UNITED STATES 
IN THE EAST. 




JNCE our return to America, and 
even while we write, our country 
is involved in war with the ancient 
dynasty of Spain. "The argument being ex- 
hausted " which sought for humane and honor- 
able solution of the problems, the appeal to 
arms, the last and final arbiter of nations, was 
made. Of its perils and privations, its death- 
less laurels won by land and by sea, we need 
not write. The first and grandest result of 
that conflict — now and ever more till the judg- 
ment-day may our countrymen point to it with 
pride and gratitude beyond human utterance — 

has been the complete reunion of the North 

L307] 



808 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

and South, the East and West, in the fraternal 
love of our fathers. Differ we will, and ought, 
on questions of civil policies that divide great 
and friendly political parties ; but when, if ever 
again, this country shall be compelled in the 
future, as in the past, to engage in war against 
foreign powers, it will be by an undivided and 
indissoluble union of all the States and peoples 
of the great Republic, in ''letter and in spirit," 
as at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, in the times 
of the old " Continentals," who fought and fell 
for the Union of our fathers. 

The author speaks advisedly, though not offi- 
cially, in stating that Japan is " heart and soul " 
in favor of the United States keeping the whole 
of our recently acquired possessions in the Far 
East, as the fruit of the conflict with an enemy 
whose history for centuries has been stained 
with cruelties and inquisitorial oppressions, all 
around the globe. Japan does not want any 




Sisters. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 309 

European country, not even England, to have 
and to hold these islands, by purchase or by 
conquest. As events are now shaping in Asia, 
Japan stands forth as the pre-destined ally of 
the United States, with England, possibly (and 
we may add, probably), as the advocate of un- 
restricted commerce. She wishes, not "free 
trade" as defined in political lexicons of this 
day, hut freedom of trade with all the nations of 
the earth. The importation of raw American 
cotton alone during this year, from 1897 to 
1898 up to June 1 st, increased over nine mil- 
lions of dollars, and the present total value of 
640,000 bales of our cotton, sent to Japan, 
is $27,000,000. Other purchases from the 
country have increased in the same ratio, and 
those products she has been accustomed to 
buy from other nations have diminished in cor- 
responding degree. In addition to the fore- 
going wonderful increase in American exports 



310 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

of raw cotton to Japan, we subjoin the following 
gratifying facts, received and officially pub- 
lished by the United States Treasury Bureau 
of Statistics. After stating that the imports 
from the United States to Japan were more 
than trebled, the report further shows that : 

Our manufactures of iron and steel are es- 
pecially satisfactory to the Japanese, the in- 
crease in nearly all articles of this class being 
strongly marked. Imports of locomotive en- 
gines from the United States increased from 
824,080 yen in the last half of last year to 
1,443,240 yen in the first half of the present 
year. Of nails the imports into Japan from 
the United States increased from 3,260,858 
catties in the first half of last year to 7,494,197 
catties in the first half of the present year, the 
cattie being one and three-tenths pounds, the 
total importation of nails having fallen mean- 
time from 10,394,717 catties in the first half of 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 311 

the present year. The imports of bar and rod 
iron from the United States increased from 
168,085 catties in the first half of 1897 to 
1,071,430 in the first half of 1898, while under 
the head of " other iron and steel " the imports 
from the United States increased from 9,410 
yen in the first half of 1897 to 197,475 in the 
first half of 1898, the value of the gold yen 
being 49.8 cents. 

Importations of alcohol from the United 
States increased from 10,283 yen in value to 
165,254; those of cigarettes from 284,091 yen 
to 35 1 '57° J °f beans and peas from 414 yen to 
16,566, while other articles of this class also 
showed marked increase. 

The finer grades of American manufacture, 
also, seem to be finding special favor among 
the Japanese, imports of American watches 
having increased from 95,511 yen in the first 
half of last year to 165,690 yen in the first half 



312 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

of the present year, while our own records of 
exportations show an increase in exports of 
typewriters, sewing machines, and other articles 
of this class to Japan in the fiscal year just 
ended as compared with those of the preceed- 
ing year. 

Returning to our own statements of exports 
to Japan, it is found that in the first seven 
months of 1898 our exports to Japan increased 
over 57 per cent, as compared with the corres- 
ponding months of 1897. This increase was 
in a large number of articles. Exports of 
books, maps, and engravings increased from 
$12,329 to $14,081 ; those of wheat-flour from 
90,153 barrels to 96,886 barrels; cycles, from 
$41,909 to $59,171 ; clocks and watches, from 
$98,834 to $105,094 ; raw cotton, from $1,490,- 
157 to $5,063,775 ; hides and skins, from 4,008 
pounds to 20,200 pounds ; instruments and 
apparatus for scientific purposes, including tele- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 313 

graph and telephone, from $101,901 to $111,- 
258; steel rails, from $595,853 to $910,117; 
sewing machines, from $3,276 to $4,062 ; sole 
leather, from 653,153 pounds to 876,949 
pounds ; kerosene oil, from 24,970,088 gallons 
to 37,210,494 gallons ; paraffine, from 2,509,638 
pounds to 3,906,713 pounds; butter, from 
47,170 pounds to 58,580 pounds ; cheese, from 
14,556 pounds to 19,935 pounds, with a cor- 
responding growth in many other articles. 

From these facts and figures — as a vantage 
ground and stand-point of the present — the 
picture cast upon the canvas of the future, will 
disclose a commerce increased to hundreds of 
millions of dollars annually. 

Japan and her new tariff, treaties, and rela- 
tions to foreigners is the subject of a monograph 
just prepared by the United States Treasury 
Bureau of Statistics. With a new currency, a 
new tariff, new treaties, and new relations with 



314 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

the large foreign element which has played so 
great a part in the development of Japan, condi- 
tions in that Empire are a subject of especial 
interest, present and prospective, while the 
rapid development of American commerce with 
Japan and the market there opening for 
American goods add greatly to the interest of 
this study. 

No other nation has experienced such a re- 
markable growth in its commerce with Japan 
as has the United States. Japanese official fig- 
ures give the importations from the United 
States, in 1893 at 6,090,408 yen, and in 1898 at 
40,001,097 yen. Meantime her importations 
from England increased from 27,929,628 yen to 
62,707,572 yen; those from Germany, from 
7,318,134 yen to 25,610,961 yen; those from 
France, from 3,305,277 yen to 6,979,982 yen; 
China, from 17,095,975 yen to 30,523,860 yen ; 
while the only part of the world which has ex- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 315 

perienced an increase at all to be compared 
with that of the United States is British East 
Indies, in which the increase has been from 
8,679,029 yen in 1893 to 40,764,244 yen in 
1898. 

Japan's importations have grown enormously 
in the past five years. In 1893 they amounted 
to 88,257,172 yen, and in 1898 to 277,502,166 
yen, being thus in 1898 more than three times 
as much as in 1893. Meantime her exports 
have grown from 89,712,864 yen in 1893 to 
165,753,752 yen in 1898. Thus the exports 
have doubled and the imports have trebled 
during the period under consideration — 1893 
and 1898. 

With a yearly consuming power of 277,000,- 
000 yen or $138,000,000, the commercial wants 
of Japan are worthy of careful consideration. 
This is especially the case when, as shown by 
the above statements, the disposition is to look 



316 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

to the United States for a constantly increasing 
proportion of its supplies. In 1893, as already 
indicated, the United States furnished less than 
7 per cent, of the imports into Japan, and in 
1898 14.4 per cent., while England, our prin- 
cipal competitor in the markets of the East, 
which in 1893 furnished 32 per cent, of Japan's 
importations, in 1898 furnished 22.6 per cent. 
Not only have the producers and exporters of 
the United States developed in the past few 
years a disposition to push their sales in that 
particular country, but Japan herself is show- 
ing a disposition to make her purchases from 
the nearest markets, those of the United States, 
and has recently established steamship lines 
connecting with United States ports. 

The following table shows the imports into 
Japan from the United States, in 1898, of all 
articles whose value exceed 100,000 yen. It 
is taken from the official returns of the Jap- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 317 

anese Government, and stated in yen, whose 
value is 49.3 cents : 

Articles imported into Japan 1898. 

from United States — Ten. 

Cotton, raw 14,751,199 

Kerosene oil 5,910,774 

Locomotive engines 1,999,091 

Flour .... 1,979,359 

Rails for railways 1,609,731 

Tobacco, leaf 1,598,235 

Cigarettes 1,203,283 

Nails 977,815 

Printing paper 886,007 

Structural iron, bridges and buildings 781,198 

Sole leather 514,431 

Electric-light apparatus ... 407,328 

Alcohol • 397«838 

Lubricating oil 380,122 

Railway material, other than rails 339,195 

Watches, silver 251,356 

Iron pipe and tubes 238,838 

Paraffine wax 228,767 

Pig-iron 226,915 

Carriages, bicyles, etc 205,089 

Condensed milk 174,562 

Electric-light wire 151,170 

Watches, gold 145,844 

Leather, other than sole 140,942 

Tobacco, cut 138,982 

Cotton duck 121,930 

Timber, lumber, etc 116,716 

Lead 116,416 

Steam boilers and engines 104,877 



318 THE VNITEB STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

The following table shows the imports from 
the United States, those from the United 
Kingdom and the total imports from all coun- 
tries into Japan in each year from 1888 to 1898 : 

Imports Imports Imports 

from from from all 

U. S. U'td K'dm. countries. 

Year. Yen. Yen. Yen. 

1888 5,648,734 28,693,567 65,549,200 

1889 6,143,171 26,007,935 66,236,019 

1890 6,874,532 26,619,102 81,836,575 

1891 6,840,048 19,993,061 63,851,132 

1892 5,988,054 20,739,332 75,952,344 

1893 6,090,408 27,929,628 88,257,172 

1894 10,982,558 42,189,874 117,481,955 

1895 9,276,360 45,172,111 129,260,578 

1896 16,373,420 59,251,780 171,574,474 

1897 27,030,538 65,406,266 319,300,772 

1868 40,001,097 62,707,572 277,502,158 

Note. — Value of yen on January 1, 1888, 75.3 cents; 1889, 
73.4 cents; 1S90, 75.2 cents; 1891, 83.1 cents; 1892, 74.5 cents; 
1893, 66.1 cents; 1894, 55.6 cents; 1895, 49.1 cents; 1896, 52.9 
cents; 1897, 51.1 cents; 1898, 49.8 cents. 

Japan is, by reason of recent events, the 
nearest neighbor to the United States aside 
from those whose territory is actually con- 
tiguous, Canada and Mexico. Her compar- 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 319 

atively recent exchange of mainland territory 
to Russia for the line of islands stretching 
northwardly from her central group, brings her 
territory within about 500 miles of that of the 
United States in the Aleutian chain of islands, 
while at the south her newly-acquired island of 
Formosa lies within less than 200 miles of our 
own newly-acquired territory, the Philippines. 
Thus not only are the United States and Japan 
" neighbors " territorially, but their insular 
possessions combined stretch along the entire 
Pacific coast of Asia from arctic to equatorial 
waters. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



THE RELATION OF THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 
TO THE PROPOSED "PEACE CONGRESS OF THE 
WORLD," CALLED TO ASSEMBLE AT ST. PETERS- 
BURG IN 1899. 




\(HE smoke of conflict between 
Spain and the United States had 

® scarcely passed away from sea 
and land — Protocols and Commissions of the 
victor and of the vanquished were forming and 
convening to formulate a final " Treaty of 
Peace" under the terms of the surrender — 
when there comes upon the stage a new 
unlooked for messenger accredited to all the 
nations. That messenger comes bearing a 
"white flag," sounds a "parley" along the 
lines of hostile armies and a grounding of arms 

[320] 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 321 

of all the great Powers ! It may never attain 
its ostensible object, but when Russia, the 
mightiest in territory and armies of all the 
Powers of the globe, and with a record stretch- 
ing far back through the centuries, of alleged 
absolutisms in Church and State, and marked 
by political death-penalties, often without trials, 
or by living matyrdoms in the mines and dun- 
geons from Poland to Siberia — when such a 
Power calls for peace, it is high time to ask the 
watchman on the walls, "what of the night?" 
Is it after all only the play of diplomacy a la- 
Talleyrand, or is it a sincere and courageous 
conversion, like that of Saul of Tarsus, who 
ceased his persecutions of the saints while on 
his memorable journey to Damascus and be- 
came the world's greatest Christian hero and 
disciple, echoing " peace on earth and good 
will to men ? " 

To such an invitation of this old and mighty 



322 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

Empire, even as we write, all the Powers have 
signified an acceptance. 

That such a movement should begin and be 
adopted within ninety days from its initial date, 
may well challenge the earnest thought of 
popes and priests of Rome, and of all Protest- 
ant Christendom, as well as of emperors and 
kings and presidents of republics, and parlia- 
ments and congresses around the world. It is 
a forerunner and a harbinger of the better 
times coming, at least, whether from its convo- 
cation peace universal will result or not during 
this generation. The United States has been 
forced by the fortunes of war with Spain, to 
discuss her relations, political and commercial, 
in the Far East — the possible colonial or terri- 
torial policy of the future, growing out of her 
recent foreign war, and the acquisition of terri- 
tory from the conquered Power in Manilan 
waters. In that proposed and august assem- 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 323 

bly, our country with Japan, our best and most 
faithful friend in the Orient, will meet together, 
and by their side, around the council board, 
will be that other great English-speaking 
people, whose " drum beat echoes 'round the 
globe." In all the record of the eventful past, 
the United States can challenge, without vain 
boasting, all other nations to point to a single 
acquisition of territory, by purchase or by war, 
where our " quarrel" was not always "just," 
and, therefore, "thrice-armed" in the conflict; 
where, in the new political and social life 
vouch safed to those acquisitions, liberty, and 
just government and protection and peace did 
not in the transition take place of despotism, 
cruel, and oppressive laws, and domestic strife. 
America wants peace, and goes to war only in 
" wisdom, justice, and moderation " to preserve 
it. In our retrospect of Japan, though an im- 
perial Power for ages, we have seen that she 

28 



324 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST 

has never waged war without good cause, and 
after her victories (as with China), she could 
challenge the nations to show a grander his- 
tory of toleration, of humanity, generosity, and 
a desire for peace, than she has exhibited, even 
when threatened and hectored over by the 
great European Empire now posing for peace 
and disarmament. 

England and the United States and Japan, 
henceforth in the alliance of national friendship 
and of mutual security ; an alliance stronger 
than the cartels of the " Drei Bund" — can 
preserve the world's peace among the nations. 
Their armies and navies and resources and 
wealth and infinite credit combined can defy 
the world. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that Russia should 
take the initiative in this strange and unlooked 
for movement. She is in no condition for 
present war. Her great Military Railway, now 



MODERN' JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 325 

building, five thousand miles in length, stretch- 
ing across Siberia to Vlavidivostac, and her 
equally wonderful project to dig an ocean ship 
channel over one thousand miles, connecting 
the Black and the Baltic seas, is straining every 
nerve of her national credit, and is consuming 
— with her vast army and navy — thousands of 
millions of dollars annually. Her diplomacy, 
far-reaching and artful, as the writer can testify 
from personal and official association with her 
Ambassadors in eastern courts, has just about 
obtained all she wants in territory and open 
ports, and coaling stations, and subsidize, and 
concessions from China. Germany, France, 
and England and Russia, have about settled 
their eastern contentions with booty instead of 
blood. Japan patiently awaits the hour when 
she may avenge against Russia the rape of 
Port Arthur, which had been won in a just and 
civilized war, and sealed by Treaty. Europe, 



326 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. . 

France bides her time to avenge Sedan and 
Alsace and Loraine, and watches alike Ger- 
many at home and Great Britain in her con- 
quest of Egypt and Africa. England, land of 
liberty and law, a kingdom only in name — it 
must be written — has not one loving or devoted 
friend or ally among all the nations of Europe, 
not even in the Empire of the Kaisers where 
kindred blood flows in the veins of the princes 
and scions of the royal House of the Hohen- 
zollerns. 

Fortunately, our country is three thousand 
miles of stormy sea away from the old dynasties 
of Europe, and Japan is three thousand miles 
on the other side toward the rising sun. That 
mighty kingdom of the Briton midway between 
the two, holds the balance of power among the 
nations of Europe. Hence, in these latter 
days, the ancestral blood and the ''mother 
tongue " warms toward her kith and kin, across 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 327 

the sea ; while both of them have long em- 
braced in amity and commerce, that wonderful 
''Land of the Morning" in the possible con- 
flicts of the future. 

Therefore the Czar of Russia has set his 
heart on the coming World's Congress of 
Peace. There may be now and then a snarling 
of the " Lion " and a growling of the " Bear" 
and "rumors of war" on the Nile and the 
Soudan and Fashoda, and gossip of war cor- 
respondents, and at foreign ports, of a yet 
possible intervention by Russia and other 
powers in behalf of ruined and defeated Spain ; 
but we dismiss the idle and sensational para- 
graphs. Even if true, the United States, while 
deploring war, harbors no fear of the future — 
at home or abroad, whether her flag floats 
over Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, or the Philip- 
pines — in the " Far East." 

P. S. — Since the foregoing was placed in the 
publishers' hands, the author has received the fol- 



328 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

lowing summary of the closing work of the Peace 
Conference at the Hague. The author of this sum- 
mary is no other than the great British editor and 
journalist, Mr. W. T. Stead, who is deservedly 
recognized in Europe and America, as alike emi- 
nent in the field of letters and in the role of diplomat. 
He writes on the 29th of July, 1899, from the 
Hague that — 

" The work of the Conference is now virtually 
finished. Let us glance at the harvest that has been 
reaped. 

1. "The unanimous declaration by representa- 
tives of all the governments of the world that an 
arrest in the increase in armaments is to be desired 
for the moral and material welfare of humanity. 
The question, therefore, is remitted to each gov- 
ernment as how best to effect this much to be 
desired object. 

2. " Convention No. 1, forbidding {a) the use of 
balloons to drop explosives from the sky to injure 
combatants on the earth, (b) forbidding the use of 
asphyxiating shells, and (c) forbidding the use of 
bullets which expand or flatten, the Convention 
being signed by all the Powers, England and 
America making reserves on the last two points. 

3. " Convention No. 2, applying the provision of 
the Geneva Red Cross Society to naval warfare. 
This was recommended in 1868, but never carried 
out until to-day. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 329 

4. " Convention No. 3, embodying the perfected 
code of rules of war based upon the Brussels rules. 
Russia pressed for this in 1874, but never suc- 
ceeded in carrying it out until now. 

5. " Convention No. 4 (on mediation and arbitra- 
tion) was the greatest achievement of the Conference. 
It consists of precise and clear arrangements for 
(a) good offices and mediation when desired by 
disputants, (d) acceptance of an obligation to 
offer mediation when it is not sought, (c) special 
mediation by which a neutral power becomes 
charged with the duty of mediation as the second 
of a belligerent, (d) appointment of international 
commissions for clearing up disputed questions 
by local investigation, (e) establishment of a per- 
manent court of arbitrage with a permanent bureau 
at the Hague. 

6. "Acceptance by all governments of the duty 
of representing to governments in dispute the im- 
portance of referring their quarrel to a court and 
the elaboration of a complete code of arbitration 
procedure. 

7. " Powers se reservent de conclure, new treaties 
extending obligatory arbitration to all cases which 
they deem suitable. 

8. " Definite resolutions have been passed de- 
claring that new conferences should be held on the 
following subjects : (a) Revision of the Geneva 



330 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

Convention, (b) rights and dues of neutrals, (c) 
right of capture of private property at sea, and (d) 
the question of bombarding coast towns." 

Such are some of the gains garnered for hu- 
manity. What a conclusive answer is this to those 
fears and misgivings which filled the air all last 
autumn ! 

" The indirect results have been hardly less 
important. The Conference has brought together 
men of all nations, from the uttermost ends of the 
earth, and set them to work together to devise 
means to promote peace and humanize war. Never 
before have men of such diverse nationalties been 
brought into such close companionship for so noble 
an end, and never have members of any Conference 
been so fraternal, so friendly, so heartily at one 
among themselves. 

" The Conference itself as a factor in the evolu- 
tion of human society is greater than all its works. 
It was a difficult question and gave rise to great 
searching of heart, even among the delegation." 

MET FOR FINAL SITTING. 

The Hague, 3 P. M., July 29. — The International 
Peace Conference met for its final sitting to-day, 
when it was announced that sixteen States had 
signed the arbitration convention, fifteen the other 
two, seventeen the declaration prohibiting throwing 



MODERN JAPAN AND TEE ORIENT. 331 

of projectiles or explosives from balloons, sixteen 
the declaration prohibiting use of expansive bullets. 

A letter was read from the Queen of Holland to 
the Pope, asking his moral support of the Con- 
ference. The Pope's reply, which was read, 
promised co-operation, recalled the fact that he 
had many times performed the function of arbitra- 
tor, and assured Her Majesty that in spite of his 
present abnormal position, the Pope would continue 
to seek the advancement of civilization. 

The three conventions regarding the laws and 
adoption of the Geneva Convention to naval war- 
fare were not signed by Germany, Austro-Hun- 
gary, China, England, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, 
Servia, Switzerland, or Turkey. The United States 
signed only the arbitration convention. Roumania 
was also out. 

The three declarations prohibiting the throwing 
of explosives from balloons, the use of asphyxiating 
projectiles and the use of dumdum bullets were 
not signed by Germany, Austro-Hungary, China, 
England, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Servia, or 
Switzerland, and the United States signed the 
declaration regarding the throwing of explosives 
from balloons. 

Baron de Staal delivered the farewell address, 
thanking the representatives of Foreign States. He 
said that the work accomplished, while not so com- 



332 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAB EAST. 

plete as might be desired, was sincere, wise, and 
practical. The great principal of the sovereignty 
of individual States and international solidarity, 
apparently so opposing, had been reconciled by 
what they had accomplished. He affirmed that in 
time to come institutions which had their origin in 
the need of concord would be the dominating in- 
fluence, and that thus the work of the Conference 
was truly meritorious. 

Minister Esteurnelles and Dr. Beaufort followed, 
the latter saying that if the Conference had not 
realized Utopian dreams, nevertheless it had dis- 
proved pessimistic forebodings, and the moral effect 
would more and more influence public opinion and 
aid governments to solve the question of the 
limitation of armaments, which still remain a source 
of grave consideration for statesmen of all countries. 

Baron de Staal then declared the Conference 
closed. 

Hamburg, August 7. — (Correspondence of the 
Associated Press.) — At the request of the corres- 
pondent here of the Associated Press, Andrew D. 
White, United States Ambassador to Germany, who 
was President of the American Peace Commission 
at The Hague, has written the following in regard 
to the result of the Conference : 

" In my opinion a great good was accomplished, 
far more, in fact, than any of us dared expect or 
even hope when we came together. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 333 

"As to the disarmament, everybody really think- 
ing upon the subject must see that a good system 
of arbitration must come first, and that then, when 
arbitration has diminished the likelihood of war, 
the argument for cutting down forces and arma- 
ments is greatly strengthened. The logical order 
then is, first, arbitration and next disarmament. 

As to the plan of arbitration, any compulsory 
system is at present utterly out of the question. 
There are so many international differences, in- 
volving questions of race, religion, security and 
even national existence, and the difficulty of draw- 
ing a line between these and questions which might 
properly be arbitrated is so insurmountable, that 
there is not a nation on the face of the earth willing 
to risk an obligatory system. Far better, then, 
than any compulsion arbitration, which probably, 
even if it had been adopted by the Conference, not 
one of the Powers would have ratified, is a 
thoroughly good system of voluntary arbitration, 
recourse to which public opinion will enforce more 
and more, and this I earnestly believe the Confer- 
ence has presented to the world. 

" The present plan is the result of most careful 
thought by the most foremost international lawyers, 
statesmen, and diplomatists of Europe, to say 
nothing of other parts of the world." 



334 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

THE RETIRING UNITED STATES MINISTER'S REMARKS 

ON PRESENTING HIS LETTER OF RECALL 

TO THE EMPEROR. 

Your Imperial Majesty : 

I have the honor to present to your Majesty 
my formal letter of recall — from my government — 
as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to your Majesty's Government since 1885 
until the present day. 

In discharging this duty I cannot forego the 
opportunity, now presented, of expressing my 
earnest gratification for the gracious reception and 
the cordial friendship extended to me on all occa- 
sions heretofore as the official representative of the 
United States of America. My government and 
my country will not forget this friendly disposition 
of your Majesty and of your Majesty's Government, 
and I extend the assurance of the most complete 
reciprocity by my country of the long continued 
and undiminished friendship existing between your 
Majesty's Government and that of the United 
States. 

In taking my final leave of Japan, permit me to 
express the earnest wish of myself and of my 
countrymen for the future peace and prosperity of 
this Empire, and a long life and happy reign of 
Power to your Majesty. 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 335 

I now have the honor to present to your Majesty 
my successor, Hon. John F. Swift, an eminent 
citizen of the United States, who will submit in 
person his letter from the President accrediting 
him as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary. To his care the interests of my country 
have been safely entrusted. For him, and his 
administration, I confidently invoke the same cor- 
dial friendship which has always heretofore been 
extended to myself and my predecessors as the 
representatives of my Government of the United 
States of America. 

REPLY OF HIS MAJESTY, THE EMPEROR, TO THE 
AMERICAN MINISTER. 

This government receives your letter of recall, 
owing to the end of your term, with sincere regret. 
Our wish, expressed over four years ago, that your 
administration might add another link to the chain 
of friendship which binds our countries together 
for nearly half a century, has been gratified. The 
events of your official sojourn with us have been 
made most memorable by the negotiation of the 
first Extradition Treaty between our nations, and 
by the negotiation of an Independent Treaty of 
Amnity and Commerce which has received the ap- 
proval of ourself and the President of the United 



S36 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

States. These, and your constant recognition of 
our honest endeavors for progress in civilization, 
and your renewed evidences of our right to self- 
government, will make the memories of your 
mission to the court as lasting as it will be happy 
to Japan. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



LAST DAYS IN JAPAN HOMEWARD BOUND. 




N the good year of our Lord, 1 890, 
we are gladly, yet sadly, taking 
leave of beautiful and hospitable 
Japan. No American Minister since the days 
of Townsend Harris, our first great — and per- 
haps the greatest — representative, ever entered 
upon his mission at that court who did not re- 
ceive joyful welcome, and did not receive upon 
his return to his native land, cheerful "bon 
voyage," with blessings and benedictions. It 
is a happy memory that shall abide with us 
until the end of life, that our sojourn in Japan 
constituted no exception to the grateful ex- 
periences of our predecessors. During the 

decade since our humble services were rendered 

[337] 



338 THE UNITED STATES IN TEE FAR EAST. 

to our country and to Japan, and in the event- 
ful period of the national life of the latter 
Power, Japan's progress has been without a 
single backward step, ever onward to the 
front. In her recent military triumphs over the 
greatest of Eastern Powers, she has been just, 
forbearing, and generous to a fault. Her sub- 
sequent victories of peace have been more 
renowned than those of war. The fruition of 
her well-grounded hopes for a long deferred 
and deserved autonomy is near at hand. Even 
now the day is breaking on the night. The 
fact that our country has unselfishly contributed 
to this noble achievement has received long ago 
the grateful acknowledgment of Japan, de- 
clared alike from cabinet, parliament, and the 
throne. In no selfish spirit of personal ambi- 
tion, but for the love we cherish with all of our 
countrymen for our native land, we make 
record now and here of the highest recognition 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 339 

and appreciation of all the kindly acts of 
friendship and courtesy always thus bestowed 
upon the great Republic. We have watched 
with pride how steadily Japan has overcome 
the prejudices of the West ; how polygamy, 
for ages permitted, is hastening to its doom, 
existing now only in name ; how the noblest of 
the attributes of national and industrial life, 
fidelity, gratitude, and honor, have been kept 
faithfully and even more constantly than by 
many of the Christian Powers of the earth ; 
how the sanctity of her homes of love and 
chastity, and how devotion to the vows of the 
marriage altar, have come in the latter days to 
bless and elevate her people. We rejoice that 
toleration in Church and State still stands at her 
gates, giving welcome to all classes and all 
creeds under the sun ; and that she has grandly 
continued to progress in all the higher paths 
of civilization. Our country, for all these 

27 



340 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

triumphs, sends across the sea to Japan alike 
our greetings and our blessings and our 
prayers for her future. She has been the 
"Ben-Hur" of the Orient in the contest for 
nobler prizes and on a greater arena than was 
ever offered by the Roman Circus. Despised 
in the beginning of the national contest by rival 
political charioteers, she has, with steady hand 
and clear eye and brave heart, grasped the 
reins and distanced her competitors in the race 
for national independence and power. 

We are now homeward bound, and nearing 
the " Golden Gate." That happy circle to 
whom we introduced our readers years ago, 
who came with us across the Pacific, has been 
broken. The noble and Christian woman who 
represented the glorious womanhood of Amer- 
ica in that distant land, had been transferred 
by the Master to a higher than any earthly 
court. She was borne with us, homeward 



MODERN JAPAN AND THE ORIENT. 341 

bound, the loved and lost, to rest in the bosom 
of our native land. A holy memory is linked 
forever with the great sympathy which Japan 
then and there extended to our common coun- 
try and to her stricken Minister. It was, we 
repeat, a tribute to the womanhood of America, 
whom she so faithfully represented in that 
bright "Land of the Morning." 

God of our fathers, bless our country, and 
the restored union of the States never to be 
broken more. In a circuit around the globe, 
we have found it to be the noblest, the truest, 
the freest, and the wisest of all the nations, 
from the rising to the setting of the sun. 

" Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

' This is my own, my native land ? ' 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand." 



342 THE UNITED STATES IN THE FAR EAST. 

The prayer of Grant in his first and last 
message to his countrymen, " Let us have 
peace," has at last been answered, in a fruition 
which shall not perish from the earth. 

Thus, in all coming time, in peace or war, 
may our countrymen, while differing in political 
faiths, be forever "one, as the sea," though 
" distinct as the billows." And thus may the 
defenders of the Republic, in counsel, in field, 
on land or sea, when their sunset of life hath 
come, leave behind them priceless legacies and 
halos of patriotic service to their country and 
posterity, which shall linger long after their 
spirits have soared beyond the shadow and the 
cloud to the Better Land. 




APPENDIX 



^\(*>; 




[343] 



APPENDIX "B." 



Present Treaty of Commerce and Navigation 

BETWEEN 

Japan and the United States of America. 



Signed at Washington, 22nd day of the nth month, 27th year of Meiji. 
GOING INTO EFFECT JULY 17, 1899. 



His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, and the 

President of the United States of America, being 

equally desirous of maintaining the relations of 

good understanding which happily exist between 

them, by extending and increasing the intercourse 

between their respective States, and being convinced 

that this object cannot better be accomplished than 

by revising the treaties hitherto existing between 

the two countries, have resolved to complete such 

a revision, based upon principles of equity and 

mutual benefit, and, for that purpose, have named 

as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say: His 

[345] 



346 APPENDIX. 

Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, Jushii Shinichiro 
Kurino, of the Order of the Sacred Treasure and 
of the Fourth Class, and the President of the United 
States of America, Walter Q. Gresham, Secretary 
of State of the United States ; who, after having 
communicated to each other their full powers, found 
to be in good and due form, have agreed upon and 
concluded the following Articles : 

ARTICLE I. 

The subjects or citizens of each of the two high contracting 
parties shall have full liberty to enter, travel, or reside in any 
part of the territories of the other contracting party, and shall 
enjoy full and perfect protection for their persons and property. 

They shall have free access to the courts of justice in pur- 
suit and defense of their rights ; they shall be at liberty equally 
with native subjects or citizens to choose and employ lawyers, 
advocates and representatives to pursue and defend their 
rights before such courts, and in all other matters connected 
with the administration of justice they shall enjoy all the 
rights and privileges enjoyed by native subjects or citizens. 

In whatever relates to rights of residence and travel ; to the 
possession of goods and effects of any kind ; to the succession 
to personal estate, by will or otherwise, and the disposal of 
property of any sort, and in any manner whatsoever which 
they may lawfully acquire, the subjects or citizens of each 
contracting party shall enjoy in the territories of the other, 



APPENDIX. 347 

the same privileges, liberties, and rights, and shall be subject 
to no higher imposts or charges in these respects, than native 
subjects or citizens, or subjects or citizens of the most 
favored nation. The subjects or citizens of each contracting 
party shall enjoy in the territories of the other, entire liberty 
of conscience, and, subject to the laws, ordinances and regu- 
lations, shall enjoy the right of private or public exercise of 
their worship, and also the right of burying their respective 
countrymen according to their religious customs, in such suit- 
able and convenient places as may be established and main- 
tained for that purpose. 

They shall not be compelled, under any pretext whatsoever, 
to pay any charges or taxes other or higher than those that 
are, or may be paid by native subjects or citizens of the most 
favored nation. 

The subjects or citizens of either of the contracting parties 
residing in the territories of the other, shall be exempted from 
all compulsory military service whatsoever, whether in the 
army, navy, national guard, or militia; from all contributions 
imposed in lieu of personal service, and from all forced loans 
or military exactions or contributions. 

ARTICLE II. 

There shall be reciprocal freedom of commerce and naviga- 
tion between the territories of the two high contracting 
parties. 

The subjects or citizens of each of the contracting parties 
may trade in any part of the territories of the other by whole- 
sale or retail in all kinds of produce, manufactures, and mer- 
chandise of lawful commerce, either in person or by agents, 



348 APPENDIX. 

singly or in partnerships with foreigners or native subjects or 
citizens ; and they may there own or hire and occup}' houses, 
manufactories, warehouses, shops, and premises which may 
be necessary for them, and lease land for residential and com- 
mercial purposes, conforming themselves to the laws and 
police and customs regulations of the country like native 
subjects or citizens. 

They shall have liberty freely to come with their ships and 
cargoes, to all places, ports, and rivers in the territories of the 
other, which are or may be opened to foreign commerce, and 
shall enjoy, respectively, the same treatment in matters of 
commerce and navigation as native subjects or citizens, or 
subjects or citizens of the most favored nation, without hav- 
ing to pay taxes, imports, or duties, of whatever nature or 
under whatever denomination levied in the name or for the 
profit of the government, public functionaries, private indi- 
viduals, corporations, or establishments of any kind, other or 
greater than those paid by native subjects or citizens, or the 
subjects or citizens of the most favored nation. 

It is, however, understood that the stipulations contained in 
this and the preceding Article do not in any way effect the 
laws, ordinances, and regulations with regard to trade, the 
immigration of laborers, police, and public security which are 
in force or which may hereafter be enacted in either of the 
two countries. 

ARTICLE III. 

The dwellings, manufactories, warehouses, and shops of the 
subjects or citizens of each of the high contracting parties in 
the territories of the other, and all premises appertaining 



APPENDIX. 349 

thereto destined for purposes of residence or commerce, shall 
be respected. 

It shall not be allowable to proceed to make a search of, or 
a domiciliary visit to such dwellings and premises, or to ex- 
amine and inspect books, papers, or accounts, except under 
the conditions and with the forms prescribed by the laws, 
ordinances and regulations for subjects or citizens of the 
country. 

ARTICLE IV. 

No other or higher duties shall be imposed on the importa- 
tion into the territories of the United States of any article, the 
produce or manufacture of the territories of His Majesty, the 
Emperor of Japan, from whatever place arriving; and no other 
or higher duties shall be imposed on the importation into the 
territories of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, of any arti- 
cle, the produce or manufacture of the territories of the 
United States, from whatever place arriving, than on the 
like article produced or manufactured in any other foreign 
country; nor shall any prohibition be maintained or imposed 
on the importation of any article, the produce or manufacture 
of the territories of either of the high contracting parties, 
into the territories of the other, from whatever place arriving, 
which shall not equally extend to the importation of the like 
article, being the produce or manufacture of any other coun- 
try. This last provision is not applicable to the sanitary and 
other prohibitions occasioned by the necessity of protecting 
the safety of persons, or of cattle, or of plants useful to agri- 
culture. 



350 APPENDIX. 



ARTICLE V. 

No other higher duties or charges shall be imposed in the 
territories of either of the high contracting parties on the ex- 
portation of any article to the territories of the other than 
such as are, or may be, payable on the exportation of the like 
article to any other foreign country; nor shall any prohibition 
be imposed on the exportation of any article from the territo- 
ries of either of the two high contracting parties to the terri- 
tories of the other, which shall not equally extend to the 
exportation of the like articles to any other country. 

ARTICLE VI. 

The subjects or citizens of each of the high contracting 
parties shall enjoy in the territories of the other, exemption 
from all transit duties, and a perfect equality of treatment 
with native subjects or citizens in all that relates to warehous- 
ing, bounties, facilities, and drawbacks. 

ARTICLE VII. 

All -articles which are, or may be, legally imported into the 
ports of the territories of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, 
in Japanese vessels may likewise be imported into these ports 
in vessels of the United States, without being liable to any 
other or higher duties or charges of whatever denomination 
than if such articles were imported in Japanese vessels; and, 
reciprocally, all articles which are, or maybe, legally imported 
into the ports of the territories of the United States in vessels 
of the United States, may likewise be imported into these 
ports in Japanese vessels, without being liable to any other or 



APPENDIX. 351 

higher duties or charges of whatever denomination, than if 
such articles were imported in vessels of the United States. 
Such reciprocal equality of treatment shall take effect without 
distinction, whether such articles come directly from the 
place of origin or from any other place. 

In the same manner, there shall be perfect equality of treat- 
ment in regard to exportation, so that the same export duties 
shall be paid, and the same bounties and drawbacks allowed, 
in the territories of either of the high contracting parties on 
the exportation of any article which is, or may be, legally ex- 
ported therefrom, whether such exportation shall take place 
in Japanese vessels or in vessels of the United States, and 
whatever may be the place of destination, whether a port of 
either of the high contracting parties or of any third power. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

No duties of tonnage, harbor, pilotage, lighthouse, quaran- 
tine, or other similar or corresponding duties of whatever na- 
ture, or under whatever denomination levied in the name or 
for the profit of government, public functionaries, private in- 
dividuals, corporations, or establishments of any kind, shall 
be imposed in the ports of the territories of either country 
upon the vessels of the other country which shall not equally 
and under the same conditions, be imposed in the like cases 
on national vessels in general or vessels of the most favored 
nation. Such equality of treatment shall apply reciprocally 
to the respective vessels, from whatever port or place they 
may arrive, and whatever may be their place of destina- 
tion. 



352 APPENDIX. 



ARTICLE IX. 

In all that regards the stationing, loading and unloading of 
vessels in the ports, basins, docks, roadsteads, harbors, or 
rivers of the territories of the two countries, no privilege shall 
be granted to national vessels which shall not be equally 
granted to the vessels of the other country; the intention 
of the high contracting parties being that in this respect also 
the respective vessels shall be treated on the footing of perfect 
equality. 

ARTICLE X. 

The coasting trade of both the high contracting parties is 
excepted from the provisions of the present treaty, and shall 
be regulated according to the laws, ordinances, and regula- 
tions of Japan and of the United States, respectively. It is, 
however, understood that Japanese subjects in the territories 
of the United States and citizens of the United States in the 
territories of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, shall enjoy, 
in this respect, the rights which are, or may be, granted under 
such laws, ordinances, and regulations to the subjects or citi- 
zens of any other country. 

A Japanese vessel laden in a foreign country with cargo 
destined for two or more ports in the territories of the United 
States and a vessel of the United States laden in a foreign 
country with cargo destined for two or more ports in the ter- 
ritories of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, may discharge 
a portion of her cargo at one port, and continue her voyage to 
the other port or ports of destination where foreign trade is 
permitted, for the purpose of landing the remainder of her 



APPENDIX. 353 

original cargo there, subject always to the laws and custom- 
house regulations of the two countries. 

The Japanese Government, however, agrees to allow vessels 
of the United States to continue, as heretofore, for the period 
of the duration of this treaty, to carry cargo between the 
existing open ports of the Empire, excepting to or from the 
ports of Osaka, Niigata, and Ebisuminato. 

ARTICLE XI. 

Any ship-of-war or merchant vessel of either of the high 
contracting parties which may be compelled by stress of 
weather, or by reason of any other distress, to take shelter in 
a port of the other, shall be at liberty to refit therein, to pro- 
cure all necessary supplies, and to put to sea again, without 
paying any dues other than such as would be payable by na- 
tional vessels. In case, however, the master of a merchant- 
vessel should be under the necessity of disposing of a part of 
his cargo in order to defray the expenses, he shall be bound to 
conform to the regulations and tariffs of the place to which he 
may have come. 

If any ship-of-war or merchant vessel of one of the high 
contract parties should run aground, or be wrecked upon the 
coasts of the other, the local authorities shall inform the Con- 
sul-General, Consul, Vice-Consul, or Consular Agent of the 
district of occurrence, or, if there be no such Consular officers, 
they shall inform the Consul-General, Consul, Vice-Consul, or 
Consular Agent of the nearest district. 

All proceedings relative to the salvage of Japanese vessels 
wrecked or cast on shore in the territorial water of the United 



354 APPENDIX. 

States, shall take place in accordance with the laws of the 
United States ; and, reciprocally, all measures of salvage rela- 
tive to vessels of the United States, wrecked or cast on shore 
in the territorial waters of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, 
shall take place in accordance with the laws, ordinances and 
regulations of Japan. 

Such stranded or wrecked ship or vessel, and all parts there- 
of, and all furnitures and appurtenances belonging thereunto, 
and all goods and merchandise saved therefrom, including 
those which may have been cast into the sea, or the proceeds 
thereof, if sold, as well as all papers found on board such 
stranded or wrecked ship or vessel, shall be given up to the 
owners or their agents, when claimed by them. If such 
owners or agents are not on the spot, the same shall be deliv- 
ered to the respective Consul-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, 
or Consular Agents, upon being claimed by them within the 
period fixed by the laws, ordinances and regulations of the 
country, and such Consular officers, owners or agents shall 
pay only the expenses incurred in the preservation of the prop- 
erty, together with the salvage or other expenses which would 
have been payable in the case of a wreck of a national vessel. 

The goods and merchandise saved from the wreck shall be 
exempt from all the duties of the customs unless cleared for 
consumption, in which case they shall pay the ordinary duties. 

When a ship or vessel belonging to the subjects or citizens 
of one of the high contracting parties is stranded or wrecked 
in the territories of the other, the respective Consul-General, 
Consuls, Yice-Consuls, and Consular Agents shall be author- 
ized, in case the owner or master, or other agent of the owner, 
is not present, to lend their official assistance in order to afford 



APPENDIX. 355 

the necessary assistance to the subjects or citizens of the re- 
spective States. The same rule shall apply in case the owner, 
master, or other agent is present, but requires such assistance 
to be given. 

ARTICLE XII. 

All vessels which, according to Japanese law, are to be 
deemed Japanese vessels, and all vessels which, according to 
United States law, are to be deemed vessels of the United 
States, shall, for the purposes of this treaty, be deemed Jap- 
anese vessels, and vessels of the United States, respectively. 

ARTICLE XIII. 

The Consul-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, and Consular 
Agents of each of the high contracting parties residing in the 
territories of the other, shall receive from the local authorities 
such assistance as can by law be given to them for the recovery 
of deserters from the vessels of their respective countries. 

It is understood that this stipulation shall not apply to the 
subjects or citizens of the country where the desertion takes 
place. 

ARTICLE XIV. 

The high contracting parties agree that, in all that concerns 
commerce and navigation, any privilege, favor or immunity 
which either high contracting party has actually granted, or 
may hereafter grant, to the government, ships, subjects or 
citizens of any other State, shall be extended to the govern- 
ment, ships, subjects or citizens of the other high contracting 
party, gratuitously, if the concession in favor of that other 



356 APPENDIX. 

State shall have been gratuitous, and on tne same equivalent 
conditions if the concession shall have been conditional; it 
being their intention that the trade and navigation of each 
country shall be placed in all respects by the other on the 
footing of the most favored nation. 

ARTICLE XV. 

Each of the high contracting parties may appoint Consul- 
General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, Pro-Consuls, and Consular 
Agents, in all the ports, cities, and places of the other except 
in those where it may not be convenient to recognize such 
officers. 

This exception, however, shall not be made in regard to one 
of the high contracting parties without being made likewise 
in regard to every other Power. 

The Consul-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, Pro-Consuls, 
and Consular Agents may exercise all functions, and shall 
enjoy all privileges, exemptions, and immunities which are, 
or may be hereafter granted to Consular officers of the most 
favored nation. 

ARTICLE XVI. 

The subjects or citizens of each of the high contracting 
parties shall enjoy in the territories of the other, the same 
protection as native subjects or citizens in regard to patents, 
trademarks, and designs, upon fulfillment of the formalities 
prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE XVII. 

The high contracting parties agree to the following arrange- 
ment: 



APPENDIX. 357 

The several foreign settlements in Japan shall, from the 
day this treaty comes into force, be incorporated with the re- 
spective Japanese communes, and shall thenceforth form par- 
of the general municipal system of Japan. The competent 
Japanese authorities shall thereupon assume all municipal ob- 
ligations and duties in respect thereof, and the common funds 
and property, if any, belonging to such settlements shall at 
the same time be transferred to the said Japanese authorities. 

When such incorporation takes place existing leases in per- 
petuity upon which property is now held in the said settle- 
ments shall be confirmed, and no conditions whatever, other 
than those contained in such existing leases, shall be imposed 
in respect of such property. It is, however, understood that 
the Consular authorities mentioned in the same are in all cases 
to be replaced by the Japanese authorities. All lands which 
may previously have been granted by the Japanese Govern- 
ment free of rent for the public purposes of the said settle- 
ments shall, subject to the right of eminent domain, be 
permanently reserved free of all taxes and charges for the 
public purposes for which they were originally set apart. 

ARTICLE XVIII. 

The present treaty shall, from the date it comes into force, 
be substituted in place of the Treaty of Peace and Amity con- 
cluded on the 3d day of the 3d month of the 7th year of 
Kayei, corresponding to the 31st day of March, 1854; the 
Treaty of Amity and Commerce concluded on the 19th day 
of the 6th month of the 5th year of Ansei, corresponding to 
the 29th day of July, 1858; the Tariff Convention concluded 



358 APPENDIX. 

on the 13th day of the 5th month of the 2d year of Keio, cor- 
responding to the 25th day of June, 1866; the Convention con- 
cluded on the 25th day of the 7th month of the 11th year of 
Meiji, corresponding to the 25th day of July, 1878, and all 
arrangements and agreements subsidiary thereto concluded or 
existing between the high contracting parties, and from the 
same date such treaties, conventions, arrangements, and 
agreements shall cease to be binding, and in consequence, the 
jurisdiction then exercised by courts of the United States in 
Japan and all the exceptional privileges, exemptions, and im- 
munities then enjoyed by citizens of the United States as a 
part of, or appurtenant to such jurisdiction shall absolutely 
and without notice cease and determine, and thereafter all 
such jurisdiction shall be assumed and exercised by Japanese 
courts. 

ARTICLE XIX. 

This treaty shall go into operation on the 17th day of July, 
1899, and shall remain in force for the period of twelve years 
from that date. 

Either high contracting party shall have the right, at any 
time thereafter, to give notice to the other of its intention to 
terminate the same, and at the expiration of twelve months 
after such notice is given, this treaty shall wholly cease and 
determine. 

ARTICLE XX. 

This treaty shall be ratified, and the ratifications thereof 
shall be exchanged at Tokio or Washington as soon as possible, 
and not later than six months after its signature. 



APPENDIX. 359 

In witness whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries have 
signed the present treaty in duplicate, and have thereunto 
affixed their seals. 

Done at the city of Washington, the 22d day of the eleventh 
month of the 27th year of Meiji, corresponding to the 22d day 
of November, in the eighteen hundred and ninety-fourth year 
of the Christian era. 

(Signed) SCHINICHIRO KURINO, (l. s.) 

(Signed) WALTER Q. GRESHAM. (l. s ) 



Amendment to the Foregoing Treaty, 



PROPOSED BY THE 



GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Article 19, Clause 2, after the word "time " insert the word 
^thereafter," and strike out all after the word "time" down 
to and including the word "operation," so that the clause 
will read : "Either high contractin party shall have the 
right, at any time thereafter, to give notice to the other of its 
intension to terminate the same, and at the expiration of 
twelve months after such notice is given, this treaty shall 
wholly cease and determine." 



As we go to press, the following official dispatch 
reaches the author from Washington, under date of 
17th July, 1899. It is the treaty, in substance, 
which the author negotiated for his government 
after the Treaty-Conference of 1885-6 and 7, ad- 
journed without the concurrence of any other 
Treaty Power. It was re-enacted formally, June 20, 
1894. The " beginning of the end" of exterritori- 
alism in Japan, was the memorable day when the 

Independent Treaty between the United States was 

[360] 



APPENDIX. 361 

made, duly offered by President Cleveland and the 
Emperor of Japan in 1888, and only failed to be 
ratified, because of a change of the political admin- 
istration and the inauguration of President Harri- 
son. The good seed sown a decade ago, has at 
last, preserved in a generous soil for all these years 
by the Empire and the Republic, germinated, and 
reaching the maturity of its growth, yields the 
rich harvest of absolute autonomy and freedom to 
Japan: 

JAPAN'S FORWARD STEP. 



WITH TO-DAY HER RELATIONS WITH THE ENTIRE WORLD UN- 
DERGO A RADICAL CHANGE — NEW TREATIES EFFECTIVE — 
THE DOCUMENTS EXECUTED FORM NEW COMPACTS WITH 
GREAT POWERS OF THE EARTH — FRIENDLY TOWARD UNITED 
STATES — AMERICA HAS ALWAYS STRONGLY SUPPORTED THE 
EMPIRE IN ITS MODERN MOVEMENTS. 



Washington, July 16. — The new treaty between the United 
States and Japan goes into effect tomorrow, at which time 
also new treaties between Japan and nearly all of the countries 
of Europe and some of the South American Republics also go 
into effect. 



362 APPENDIX. 

It is an event of far-reaching importance in the relations 
between Japan and the United States, as it does away with 
the treaty methods which have been in vogue for nearly fifty 
years, and substitutes an entirely new method of procedure. 

The same is true in the relations of Japan with other coun- 
tries. Taken as a whole the many new treaties which go into 
effect to-morrow place Japan on an entirely new footing with 
the world at large, as she is recognized, for the first time, as an 
equal in every respect. The treaty with this country was made 
June 20, 1894, in Washington, between Secretary Gresham 
and Minister Kureno, who then represented Japan here. 

The changes it made were so far-reaching that it was de- 
termined the treaty should not go into operation until July 
17, 1899. In an interview to-day Mr. Jutaro Komura, the 
present Japanese minister in Washington, said : 

" The 17th of July marks the turning-point in the diplomatic 
history not only of Japan, but of the oriental countries in 
general. It will be the first instance in which the western 
Powers have recognized the full sovereignty of an oriental 
State. 

"This action of the enlightened nations of Europe and 
America shows that if any country is ready to assume a full 
share in the responsibility and affairs of the world at large 
these old and enlightened Powers are ready to admit such a 
country to full power among nations. So we regard this treaty 
as a very important step, not only for Japan, but for all the 
nations of the East. 

"The countries with which Japan has made new treaties 
are the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Rus- 
sia, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Den- 



APPENDIX, 363 

mark, Sweden, and Norway, Switzerland and Peru. All of 
these go into effect to-morrow, except those with France and 
Austria, which are deferred until August 4. With most of 
these countries Japan had treaty relations before, but they 
were crude and unsatisfactory. 

"In bringing about the new system of treaties Japan natur- 
ally feels most friendly toward the United States, because she 
always has shown a most sympathetic interest in Japan's de- 
sire to adopt modern methods and to deal on even terms with 
the rest of the world." 



PROTOCOL. 



The Government of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, 
and the Government of the United States of America, deem- 
ing it advisable in the interests of both countries to regulate 
certain special matters of mutual concern, apart from the 
Treaty of Commerce and Navigation signed this day, have, 
through their respective Plenipotentiaries, agreed upon the 
following stipulations: 

1. It is agreed by the contracting parties that one month 
after the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of Com- 
merce and Navigation signed this day, the Import Tariff now 
in operation in Japan in respect of goods and merchandise 
imported into Japan by the citizens of the United States shall 
cease to be binding. From the same date the General 
Statul ory Tariff of Japan shall, subject to the provisions of 
Article IX. of the treaty of March 31, 1854, at present subsist- 
ing between the contracting parties, so long as said treaty 
remains in force, and thereafter, subject to the provisions of 
Article IV. and Article XIV. of the treaty signed this day, be 
applicable to goods and merchandise, being the growth, pro- 
duce or manufacture of the territories of the United States 
upon importation into Japan. 

But nothing contained in this Protocol shall be held to 
limit or qualify the right of the Japanese Government to 
restrict or to prohibit the importation of adulterated drugs, 
medicines, food or beverages; indecent or obscene prints, 
paintings, books, cards, lithographic or other engravings, 
photographs or any other indecent or obscene articles, 
articles in violation of patent, trade-mark, or copyright laws 
of Japan; or any other article which, for sanitary reasons, or 
in view of public safety or morals, might offer any danger. 

[364] 



APPENDIX. 365 

2. The Japanese Government, pending the opening of the 
country to citizens of the United States, agrees to extend the 
existing passport system in such a manner as to allow citizens 
of the United States, on the production of a certificate of 
recommendation from the Representative of the United States 
at Tokio, or from any of the Consuls of the United States at 
the open ports in Japan, to obtain, upon application, passports 
available for any part of the country and for any period not 
exceeding twelve months, from the Imperial Japanese foreign 
office in Tokio, or from the chief authorities in the prefecture 
in which an open port is situated, it being understood that 
the existing rules and regulations governing citizens of the 
United States who visit the interior of the Empire are to be 
maintained. 

3. The undersigned Plenipotentiaries have agreed that this 
Protocol shall be submitted to the two high contracting 
parties at the same time as the Treaty of Commerce and Navi- 
gation signed this day, and that when the said treaty is 
ratified, the agreements contained in the Protocol shall also 
equally be considered as approved, without the necessity of a 
further formal ratification. 

It is agreed that this Protocol shall terminate at the same 
time the said treaty ceases to be binding. 

In witness whereof the representative Plenipotentiaries have 
signed the same and have affixed thereto their seals. 

Done at Washington, the 22d day of the eleventh month of 
the twenty-seventh year of Meiji, corresponding to the 22d 
November, in the eighteen hundred and ninety-fourth year 
of the Christian era. 

(Signed) SHINICHIRO KURINO, (l. s.) 

WALTER Q. GRESHAM. (l. s.) 



Speech of the United States Minister 

ON 

THE USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN JAPAN, 

In the Conference of all Nations. 



"Mr. Hubbard, in reply to the delegate of France, observed 
that he did not propose to occupy the time of the Conference 
with an elaborate discussion of the various points involved in 
the important question under discussion. There was one 
point, however, which was beyond dispute, namely, that the 
official language of the courts, which it was proposed to insti- 
tute would of course be Japanese. The other point of next 
importance to this was the proposal that English, as the lan- 
guage of most general use in Japan, should be the foreign 
language adopted by those courts. His honorable colleagues, 
the delegates of Great Britian and Russia had already called 
attention to the wide diffusion of the use of the English lan- 
guage in Japan, and the practical arguments thus brought 
forward for the adoption of English as the language of the 
courts were strengthened by reference to the statistics of 
foreign population in Japan. The number of British subjects 
resident in Japan in 1885 was 1,124, and of American citizens, 
475. Later estimates placed the number of the latter at not 
less than 600; but, taking the statistics of 1885 as a guide, it 
was clear that there were at least 1,599 English-speaking 
people in Japan, while the total resident population of Euro- 
pean nationality, other than English, amounted to only 789. If 

[366] 



APPENDIX. 367 

the floating population of each nationality, in the shape of 
annual visitors, were taken into account, it would be found 
that the proportion of foreigners of American and British 
nationality to that of foreigners of all other European nation- 
alities was more than two to one. Moreover, the statistics of 
the year 1885 showed that during that year 27,996 British, and 
5,206 American merchant seaman had visited Japan; while 
the total number of merchant seamen of other European 
nationality who had visited Japan during the same year was 
only 8,466. These were striking facts which spoke for them- 
selves 

"His honorable colleague, the delegate of France, had laid 
stress on the argument that it would be difficult for English- 
speaking judges to administer laws based upon European 
models. There was, Mr. Hubbard thought, a practical answer 
which disposed of this argument. One of the most important 
States of the American Union, Louisiana, was for years a por- 
tion of the French dominions, and was French in population, 
in laws, and in feeling. Since its incorporation into the 
Union, although French had not ceased to be the language of 
a large number of the people, and although its laws were based 
on the Code Napoleon, those laws had been administered by 
English-speaking judges, and English had been the language 
of the courts and of the State administration. The case of 
Texas, another of the United States, furnished a like illustra- 
tion. While under the government of Mexico, Spanish was 
the language of the people of that State, and the whole legis- 
lative system was based on the Spanish model. But in spite of 
the fact that Spanish was still widely spoken, and that the 
system of laws was Spanish, especially those relating to landed 



368 APPENDIX. 

property, English was the official and judical tongue of the 
political administrations and courts of Texas as a Republic 
and as a State. In neither of these two cases had any difficul- 
ties, such as those apprehended by the delegate of France, 
been found to arise in regard to executive or judicial admin- 
istration. These facts, it seemed to Mr. Hubbard, disposed at 
once of the argument regarding the impossibility of a system 
of laws, based on French and German models, being adminis- 
tered through the medium of the English language by judges 
of other nationalities. 

"The argument for the adoption of English being based 
purely on the practical grounds of expediency, there could, 
he thought, be no question of invidious discrimination against 
Germany, France, or any other of the fifteen powers represen- 
ted at the Conference. No such intention could be imputed 
to the Government of Japan. By the appointment of transla- 
tors and interpreters for these courts, all needful assistance 
would be rendered to foreign suitors, while the selection of 
judges from different nationalities would be a guarantee for 
the rights of every Power, and an assurance that justice would 
be meted out to all their subjects and citizens. During the 
period for which these courts would be instituted, each of the 
Powers would obtain, if not equal recognition, at least that 
just proportion of recognition which was its due, until the 
time when Japan would assume a position of complete juris- 
dictional independence, which would be the logical result of 
the present arrangement. 

The delegate of the United States proceeded to remark that 
this was no question of selfish policy or of advantage to be 
gained by one Power over another. The point at issue was 



APPENDIX. 369 

how to do justice to Japan, and at the same time to safeguard 
the interests of foreigners. It was the recognition of this fact 
which alone influenced him in giving his cordial support to 
the proposal of his honorable colleague, the delegate of 
Russia. In no sense whatever was he actuated by the con- 
sideration that the adoption of this proposal would secure to 
England and America all that they might want, without 
regard to the interests of the other Powers concerned. Mr. 
Hubbard regretted to be obliged to differ from his honorable 
colleague, the delegate of Prance, more especially because 
there were reasons, which he would not then enumerate, why 
they should act in unison upon the subject under discussion. 
Both his colleague and himself were proud to represent Re- 
publics, and on the principle that minorities should preserve a 
compact unity, no less than because both their countries 
believed in the great doctrines of self-government and popular 
sovereignty, he had hoped, and would still continue to hope, 
that France and the United States, even if all other Powers 
consented, would not hesitate to extend a helping hand to 
Japan in her struggle to attain national independence; or that 
they would at least be the last to defeat the attainment of 
that end, even if they were required to make partial 'sacrifices 
of opinion or of interest. He must, therefore, appeal to his 
honorable colleague, the delegate of France, to accept the 
proposal of the delegate of Russia, which furnished, in his 
opinion, in its reconciliation of all the interests involved, the 
most satisfactory solution of the question. 



Speech of the United States Minister 

ON THE 

AUTONOMY OF JAPAN, 

In the International Conference. 



Mr. Hubbard made the following speech : 

Mr. President and Colleagues : 

On the occasion of the last session of this Conference it 
was my misfortune to be unavoidably absent from your 
councils. I exercised, however, the privilege of transmitting 
a note conveying a request to my colleague, the delegate for 
Great Britain, asking him to express my approval of the Re- 
vised Convention Project, jointly offered by himself and my 
German colleague. 

I now formally express my thanks to my British colleague 
for his cordial compliance with my said request on that 
occasion. 

To the President and to all my colleagues I am indebted for 
the suggestion that the observations intended by me for that 
day might be offered on this occasion. 

In performing this duty I could not proceed without first 
making due acknowledgment for this act of the Conference. 

The attitude of the Government of the United States 
hitherto towards that of Japan, in respect of the assertion and 
preservation of the autonomy of that State in its treaty 
relations with others, has been often and consistently made 

[370] 



APPENDIX. 371 

known. The documentary history of the relations of the 
United States with Japan, which appears in enduring form in 
the published as well as the unpublished records of our " For- 
eign Relations, " assigns to my country no doubtful position on 
this subject. 

The United States consider it but just that Japan, in view 
of her steady progress toward sound principles of self-govern- 
ment, should be allowed to make separate terminable treaties, 
on a footing of sovereign equality with other nations, and with 
like freedom. This is the first principle heretofore borne in 
mind in our diplomacy with this Empire, and it has been 
abundantly recognized and proclaimed by my government in 
the conclusion of the Commercial Treaty of 1878 with Japan. 

Although obvious reasons constrained the negotiators to pro- 
vide that the engagements of the treaty should not become 
effective until Japan should have like engagements with the 
other Treaty Powers, the distinct enunciation of the principles 
at issue is not thereby affected. Thus, nearly a decade ago, 
without menace and certainty in the absence of any induce- 
ments of a selfish significance in the way of currying commer- 
cial favor as a quid pro quo for such recognition, the United 
States, by the said treaty of 1878, invited aJl the Treaty Powers 
to join her in the declaration of the autonomy of Japan in all 
her commercial relations with friendly nations. 

The second principle guiding my predecessors, and still ad 
hered to by the present Government of the United States, is 
that Japan should not be coerced by the United States, or by 
any other government, into signing or revising treaties which 
impose upon her unequal or harsh conditions, inconsistent 



29 



372 APPENDIX. 

with the autonomous position she has justly won among the 
nations. 

So far as the United States are concerned, it has been our 
aim to obtain reasonable concessions for the frank recognition 
we were the first to profess of Japan's sovereign rights as a 
Treaty Power, to ensure that there shall be no distinction 
against American exports, and to secure generally as favorable 
an arrangement as any other of the great Powers. 

We have only invoked in our diplomacy with Japan the 
"Golden Rule" which should preside in the councils of na- 
tions as potently as in the councils of individuals. Not one of 
the great Treaty Powers represented in this Conference would 
ask less for itself. 

I have no hesitancy in expressing the belief (and at least the 
hope) that the Republic I represent does not stand alone, but 
in union with all the Western nations, in the denunciation of 
the exploded dogma of ancient despots that 'might makes 
right.' We have believed and acted on the conviction that 
Japan should autonomically live, not as a dependent, by 
the sufferance of other nations, but as an independent and 
friendly Power, making alliance separately with each member 
of the family of nations. 

While the terms of negotiations which may hereafter be 
acceptable as between Japan and the other Powers may not 
entirely correspond to the views of the United States hereto- 
fore expressed in detailed consideration of the projects dis- 
cussed, we do not hesitate to declare that it would be entirely 
inconsistent with our friendly attitude towards Japan, to 
insist upon any propositions to an extent which might hamper 
her freedom of action in dealing with other Powers 



APPENDIX. 373 

A just and equitable spirit of compromise will govern the 
course of my country no less in the interests of Japan than in 
her own. It is a subject of congratulation to-day that negotia- 
tions for treaty revision hitherto have undoubtedly developed 
a spirit of accommodation on all sides An example of this is 
seen in the question of the common right to terminate future 
treaties upon stipulated notice, after a given time. Con- 
tested and denied at the outset by some of the Powers, whose 
high motives we do not question, although consistently 
upheld by the United States, the right to so terminate the 
treaties is apparently now conceded as a basis of future 
negotiations, and the residual proposal to make such right 
conditional upon the prior opening of the whole territory of 
Japan to the trade and residence of subjects or citizens of the 
Treaty Powers does not materially affect the value of the 
vital principle of the independence thus claimed and admitted. 

By the Convention of 1866 the United States connected them- 
selves in joint action with Great Britain, France, and The 
Netherlands in Japan, in relation to the tariff, and, as to all 
other matters, remained as they were before. In respect to 
the rights of American citizens, the jurisdiction of our Consu- 
lar courts, and all other questions not especially treated in 
the Convention of 1866, the United States retained entire 
independence of action. 

In pursuing what to my government appeared a just policy 
towards securing, as far as practicable, the complete autonomy 
of Japan, the United States have voluntarily co-operated with 
all the Treaty Powers, at the same time taking care not to 
depart from our settled policy of avoiding all "entangling 
alliances" with other nations. It is to be observed in this 



374 APPENDIX. 

connection that the most important and essential subject to 
Japan is to obtain control of her own revenues. The arrange- 
ment of 1866 had the disadvantage of being made jointly with 
other Powers and of not being terminable on notice given. 
The only remedy left to Japan for this unsatisfactory condi- 
tion of things is revision. Although provision therefor is not 
made in the Convention of 1866, yet Japan, in the exercise of 
her unquestionable right as a sovereign Power, has demanded 
such revision, and in this request the United States, as a con- 
tracting party, have considered it advisable to join. 

The United States are not disposed to accept any result of 
the pending revision which does not embrace the terminability 
of the treaties within a reasonable period, and the exercise of 
corresponding power of denunciation. 

This autonomy begins to have recognition in the light of 
this day's work. This conceded, then regulation by Japan of 
her commerce and of her domestic affairs follows as an 
attitude of sovereignty, to be restrained only so far as she 
may deem it expedient by independent treaties. Every step 
in this direction is a step towards the position long ago and 
to-day earnestly advocated by my country. 

These observations, my colleagues, are apropos of the last 
proposal for a "Revised Jurisdictional Convention," now 
before this Conference, submitted by the British and German 
delegates in concert, and accepted by the representatives of 
Japan as a substitute for the proposed "Revised Convention," 
submitted by the Japanese delegates at the beginning of this 
Conference. In the very explicit and unambiguous report 
made by the British and German delegates, they speak of this 
new proposition as follows: 



APPENDIX. 375 

"It is based upon the Japanese proposal of 1882; but, in 
many points, note has been taken of the observations made at 
the time the scheme was brought forward, and attention has 
been paid to other matters which subsequent consideration 
has shown to be of practical importance. 

" Our idea is that there should be two Conventions: one on 
commercial, and one on jurisdictional matters; both these 
Conventions to be signed at the same time and to be dependent 
one on the other, the most favored nation clause and the 
termination clause to be equally applicable to both! " 

The separate report of the first delegate for Germany 
makes mention that he has recommended the adoption of the 
English language as the official language of the courts, and 
gives his reasons therefor. 

At the time I took occasion to say that the new project 
seemed to promise a just and equitable solution of the vexed 
question; I reiterate my adhesion to that opinion to-day. 

The new proposition avoids the questionable and doubtful 
policy of a probationary and complex system of transition 
from consular and extra-territorial to purely independent 
Japanese jurisdiction. It has advantages thus over the 
Memorandum of 1884 and over the recent "Revised Conven- 
tion " scheme submitted by the Japanese delegates, and 
fixes a day certain for resumption of complete national 
autonomy, judicial as well as commercial. 

The conditions subsequent involved in this last project will 
constitute the subject of our future deliberations in this Con- 
ference, and Japan will be fortunate if harmony and com- 
promise in our councils shall avoid the rocks on which her 
hopes were wrecked in 1882. 



376 APPENDIX. 

Briefly, in this connection, allow me to say (as a distant 
reference has been made by my colleagues of Great Britain 
and Germany in their report to the " most-favored nation " 
treatment) that the Japanese Government has respectfully 
expressed to the United States the earnest hope that the 
" most- favored nation " clause would not be insisted upon by 
my government in any future convention. I know not, nor 
is it my concern, whether a similar request has been made of 
the other Powers. My government holds, and has uniformly 
held, that in its commercial aspects the "expediency of an 
unqualified favored-nation clause is unquestionable. The 
tendency is towards its formal qualification by recognizing in 
terms (what most nations hold in fact and in practice, whether 
the conditions be expressed in the clause or not) that propin- 
quity and neighborliness may create special and peculiar 
terms of intercourse not equally open to all the world, by pro- 
viding that the most-favored nation treatment, when based 
on special and reciprocal concessions, is only to be extended to 
other Powers on like conditions." 

The terms "qualified" and "unqualified," as understood 
by my government, when applied to the most-favored nation 
treatment, are used merely as a convenient distinction be- 
tween the two forms, such a clause generally insuring in 
treaties, when containing a proviso, that any favor granted by 
one of the contracting parties to a third party shall likewise 
accrue to the other contracting party, freely if freely given, 
or for an equivalent if conditional; the other not so amplified. 
This proviso, even if omitted, does not impair the rule of in- 
ternational law, as interpretated by the State and Law Depart- 
ments of my government, that such concessions are only 



APPENDIX. 377 

gratuitous as to third parties when not based on reciprocity 
or mutually- reserved interests between the contracting par- 
ties. This ground has been long and consistently maintained 
by the United States — that a covenant to extend to third par- 
ties privileges granted to a most-favored nation only refers to 
"gratuitous privileges," and does not cover privileges granted 
"on the condition of a reciprocal advantage," that is, for a 
consideration expressed. Such a declaration was made by the 
United States as early as half a century ago, and has been 
repeatedly affirmed since that day by all administrations of 
my government. I need not say, what is known to this body, 
that this doctrine is now accepted by learned publicists with 
general if not entire unanimity. I speak with certainty as to 
the texts of standard English and American writers on inter- 
national law. 

I have thus taxed your time — I hope not your patience, my 
colleagues — because separate and independent treaties will 
hereafter be concluded, and the unfortunate possibility might 
stare Japan in the face of a failure to complete successfully 
the work so long delayed and now auspiciously foreshadowed 
by this new revised "Jurisdictional Convention." 

In view of these facts, my government has indicated its de- 
sire to its representative in this Conference and at this court, 
that he should give unequivocal expression on this and cognate 
subjects connected with treaty revision, to the end that there 
shall be no ground for misapprehension of the attitude of the 
United States in the premises. 

In uttering these frank declarations of the course heretofore 
and hereafter to be pursued by my government, I do so fully 
recognizing the fact that, so long as all the Treaty Powers co- 



378 APPENDIX. 

operate in this Conference, each of them is entitled to the 
same consideration as any of the others, and that entire con- 
cert of action must be invoked in the matter of successful 
revision. Until Japan has been loosed from the moorings of 
extra-territorial jurisdiction, and become in fact an Indepen- 
dent Power, my government, in the revision of the tariff or in 
jurisdictional revision, will respectfully claim (what it will 
doubtless receive) only fair and impartial treatment, in the 
same manner as if concluding a separate Convention with an 
Independent Power. 

Much yet remains to be done in infusing healthy, vigorous 
life into the body of this proposed Convention project, as well 
as in the future building by Japan of enduring foundations 
underneath that Temple of Law and Order, such as her ad- 
vanced civilization and the Imperial Promise have vouchsafed 
shall be erected for the Empire. The march of Japan towards 
this fruition has been, and is being, made with steady steps. 
When by our united aid her final triumph comes, all the 
Treaty Powers, I am sure, will join in welcoming Japan as a 
co-equal and independent member of the family of nations; 
and that, too, without invidious references as to who did the 
most or did the least to assist her in the day of her trials. All 
of our respective governments will share alike in the honor 
and glory of that achievement." 

The President stated that, owing to the length and impor- 
tant character of the declaration of the delegate of the United 
States, he would require time to study it; he must, therefore, 
reserve the right of replying to it, if necessary, on a future 
occasion. 



Speech of the United States Minister 

ON 

JAPANESE JURISDICTION 



Mr. Hubbard said that he wished to make a few observa* 
tions in regard to the stipulations proposed by Sir Francis 
Plunkett, some of which had been suggested to him by the 
able speeches to which he had listened. 

In the speech in which his honorable colleague, the delegate 
of Great Britain, had introduced his stipulations at the last 
meeting, Sir Francis Plunkett, speaking of the enforcement of 
Japanese regulations by foreign Consular Courts, said that in 
the case of the British Consular Courts it was necessary that 
the British Minister should give the force of British law to 
such Japanese regulations, because the Consular Courts of 
Great Britain could not, as the law now stood, enforce foreign 
law as such. The principles followed by the United States 
Government in regard to such matters in Japan was that the 
American Courts should administer in the open ports and 
within treaty limits all such Japanese laws and regulations as 
as were analogous to the laws of the United States, the idea 
being that American law held good in all extra-territorial 
countries. 

Mr. Bingham, his distinguished predecessor had laid down 
the principle that Japanese laws of whatever kind, so long as 
they were not contrary to the spirit or intent of Western leg- 
islation, and did not infringe upon the rights guaranteed to 

[379] 



380 APPENDIX 

citizens of the United States by treaty with Japan, were en- 
forceable, as Japanese law, by American Consular Courts. The 
United States Government, however, had not thought fit to 
issue any enactment confirming the views entertained by Mr. 
Bingham, and, consequently, such matters remained still un- 
regulated by any fixed law. The quarantine regulations 
might be taken as as an illustration of existing arrangements. 
Although, strictly speaking, not enforceable as law by Amer- 
ican Consular Courts, they were made binding on American 
citizens by diplomatic intervention. In the same way the 
Japanese Regulations which it was proposed, under the present 
scheme of treaty revision, to make applicable by Foreign Con- 
sular Courts would have to be referred, so far as he was con- 
cerned, to Washington, such reference being accompanied by 
a recommendation from himself as United States Minister: 
but unless those regulations, which were a part of the treaty, 
were approved by the Senate of the United States, they could 
not become binding upon American citizens in Japan. 

In the speech of the honorable delegate for Great Britain, 
to which he has already referred, Mr. Hubbard added, Sir 
Francis Plunkett also stated that the words "policy of public 
security " had been employed by him in the sense in which 
they were used by the Japanese delegates in the draft stipula- 
tions of Mr. Aoki, but that he had been given to understand 
that the Japanese Government had not claimed to include, 
under this heading, the laws concerning, the press. Although 
the delegate of the United States had no reason to believe 
that the press laws of Japan were more severe than those of 
many countries of America and Europe, and although he was 
prepared to vote for the stipulations as they stood, he desired 



APPENDIX. 381 

to suggest to the delegates of Japan the advisability of making 
more explicit statement of the intended policy of this govern- 
ment in regard to press restrictions. It was desirable, he 
thought, that they should announce that it was not the inten- 
tion of Japan to enforce press laws of a more stringent charac- 
ter than similar laws in Western countries. 

Mr. Hubbard went on to say that he approved of th«3 
maximum fixed for penalties in Article I , and would take 
the opportunity of repeating, with reference to the general 
question of the enforcement of Japanese regulations by 
Foreign Consular Courts, the observations which he had felt 
bound to make at the meeting of the 29th ultimo, namely, 
that matters within treaty limits should, as far as possible, be 
allowed to remain as they were; and would simply add that 
after the communication of the codes to Foreign Govern- 
ments, provided for in Article IV. of the Convention, had 
taken place, and those codes had been studied, Consular 
Courts would be in a better position than they now were to 
enforce Japanese regulations. 

Another point in the stipulations to which Mr. Hubbard 
desired to call attention was the question of notice. It was 
necessary before Japanese regulations could be enforced that 
they should have been previously published in the official Ga- 
zette. This question was one of vital importance; American 
law recognized two kinds of notice, namely, "constructive" 
and " actual." It must always be one or theother, and, except 
in cases of sudden emergency, the limit of time in all cases of 
notice was fixed at not less than ninety days in the case of acts 
passed by Congress or by the State Legislatures, before such 
acts could take effect as law. According to the present word- 



382 APPENDIX. 

ing of the stipulations it would be sufficient for an interval of 
a moment of time only to elapse between the publication of a 
law and its enforcement, which would practically amount to 
no notice. Mr. Hubbard, therefore, begged to suggest for the 
consideration of the Conference that the length of notice 
should be specified. With regard to the publication referred 
to being made in the English language, it was unnecessary for 
him to state that this arrangement was very acceptable to him 
as the representative of an English-speaking country. 

With reference to the provisions of Articles 4 and 5 relat- 
ing to the summoning of witnesses, and the mutual assistance 
to be rendered by Japanese and Consular Courts, the delegate 
of the United States felt bound to observe that, according to 
the American Constitution and procedure, citizens of the 
United States could not be compelled to give evidence in a 
foreign court in extra-territorial countries. 

The provisions of the stipulations in regard to real property 
and taxation recommend themselves, Mr. Hubbard said, to 
his approval; and, in conclusion, he observed that he offered 
the above remarks rather as suggestions than as criticisms, 
and with the sincere desire of furthering a settlement of the 
complicated questions involved. Even if those suggestions 
were not adopted, he was quite ready, as he had already 
stated, to accept the stipulations on behalf of his government 
in their present form. It might be necessary for him later on 
to offer some remarks upon the tariff, and he trusted that he 
would then find the Japanese delegates animated by the same 
spirit of concesssion as he had shown on this question of juris- 
diction. 

Sir Francis Plunkett said that he wished to make a short 



APPENDIX. 383 

observation on the speech of his honorable colleague, the 
delegate of the United States. His honorable colleague ap- 
peared to think that, under the powers conferred upon the 
British Minister in Japan by the present Order in Council, it 
was necessary that he should refer home before enforcing any 
new regulations upon British subjects in this country. He 
begged to explain that this was not the case. The British 
Minister had, within certain limits, power to enforce such 
regulations at once if he thought it necessary. All that was 
required was that he should report the circumstances to his 
government as soon as possible, in order that his action might 
subsequently be confirmed. 

Mr. Hubbard said that he had always understood the 
powers of the British Minister in Japan to be such as his 
honorable colleague of Great Britain had explained. These 
powers were practically identical with those possessed by the 
American Minister in Japan, who could possibly make certain 
Japanese police regulations binding on American citizens 
within treaty limits. In order to state the matter more pre- 
cisely, he might add that the power of the United States 
Minister in Japan was defined in Article 4086 of the Revised 
Statutes of the United States, which read as follows: 

"Jurisdiction in both criminal and civil matters shall in all 
cases be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws 
of the United States, which are hereby, so far as is necessary 
to execute such treaties respectively, and so far as they are 
suitable to carry the same into effect, extended over all citi- 
zens of the United States in those countries and over all others 
to the extent that the terms of the treaties respectively justify 
or require. But in all cases where such laws are not adapted 



384 APPENDIX. 

to the object, or are deficient in the provisions necessary to 
furnish suitable remedies, the common law and the law of 
equity or admiralty shall be extended in like manner over such 
citizens and others in those countries; and if neither the co 11- 
mon law nor the law of equity or admiralty nor the statutes of 
the United States furnish appropriate and sufficient remedies, 
the Ministers in those countries, respectively, shall, by de- 
crees and regulations which shall have the force of law, sup- 
ply such defects and deficiencies." 

The delegate of the United States added that the point he 
wished to make was that his own acceptance and enforcement 
of such regulations did not necessarily bind his government. 



H 103 79 > 














,-t°-* 














p •%. . 







^9 



^ 










X > s ° • » 






* v -v 


















4*^ J - 
















<\ 




4 o^ 



v 5 ^ ; W 

^0< 




I*' 











FEB 79 

^=£T N - MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 




A V f o- 




iV 






\ X/* 






£ 'V 



